Y.K. Hamied

Cipla's strategy to wrest a portion of the market for HIV anti-retrovirals is legendary, and he looks at the battle over pricing and patents for these vital medicines as his biggest "game changing" accomplishment. Cipla started commercial production of AZT in 1993 and marketed the 100-milligram capsule formulation at one-sixth of the then prevailing international price. In 1996, a breakthrough study showed that a cocktail of three anti-retroviral drugs was more effective in controlling and managing HIV. Hamied broke through the logjam of pricing and access and thus was born the world's first triple single drug cocktail, Triomune, which he offered to developing countries at a price of less than $1 per patient per day.

Hamied is still smarting over the Indian government's decision to comply with the WTO TRIPS Agreement and adopt a stronger domestic patent law. "In my opinion, one of the greatest predictable tragedies the world has witnessed started in India on December 26, 2004, with the ordinance amending the Indian Patents Act 1970. No right-thinking person can claim that there has been a dramatic improvement in the standard of living for the majority of Indians during the last three decades, certainly not to the extent of warranting a change in pharmaceutical patent laws. India cannot afford a monopoly on healthcare. What the government should do is go in for compulsory licensing of all-important, vital, and lifesaving drugs.

Hamied notes there are several other things he did to help grow the industry. In the 1960s, there was little raw material manufacture in India. "That is something I started because my background was ideal in developing local capacity to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). I pushed all the Indian companies to take on the multinationals and start producing APIs in-house, which was a revolutionary step at the time."

It follows that markets abroad are becoming much more attractive to Cipla and other Indian companies. "Our current vision is global," Hamied says.

"If the Indian government wants India to prosper, and the indigenous drug industry to make further inroads, it has to cooperate with the industry, because we now have many options. We cannot build a sustainable platform for growth under a strict price control regime. We also need a pragmatic compulsory licensing system. We are getting into a phase where multinationals are going to take over many of the pharma companies. It has already started with Piramal (acquired by Abbott) and Ranbaxy (acquired by Daiichi Sankyo). With products coming off patent during the next few years, essentially in the regulated mature markets, and with the economy in the developed world becoming sluggish, there will be a necessary shift in the attitude and workings of the multinationals toward using the emerging markets as their business model. Because of this, we intend to look at all workable options—strategic alliances, in-licensing of products, and marketing opportunities with international companies." – Amrita Ghaswalla