Development and Cooperation


	Contributions from the Column Facts and trends Rich countries should pay for environmental damage Accountability in the health sector AIDS: Brazil to ignore patents It’s the price that counts New government for Somalia AIDS: Indian generic drugs back on WHO list German opposition calls for interest-oriented development policy The miserly rich 01/2005		AIDS: Indian generic drugs back on WHO list The World Health Organisation (WHO) has returned two generic AIDS drugs manufactured by the Indian manufacturer Cipla to their list of prequalified products. The WHO removed both drugs last year, because Cipla could not prove that they reach the same concentration in the bloodstream of patients as the original patented drugs (bioequivalence, see D+C 2004:8/9, p. 313). At the end of November the WHO announced that Cipla had submitted new test results which substantiate bioequivalence. In the meantime, at the beginning of November another Indian manufacturer of generic drugs, Ranbaxy Laboratories, voluntarily removed all its AIDS drugs from the WHO list after having found discrepancies in the documentation relating to proof the products’ bioequivalence. When the WHO removed both Cipla products in Summer 2004, it urged all AIDS drug manufacturers to send in reliable test reports. (ell)