, Hetero Drugs and Strides Arcolab can make and sell the three drugs in 100 countries, including India and other developing nations, by paying royalty.

NEW DELHI: Blockbuster AIDS drug Tenofovir is set to get cheaper after its inventor and US patent holder Gilead struck non-exclusive licensing deals with four more Indian drug makers on Thursday. For crores of HIV/AIDS patients, the annual cost of treatment using tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (generic name) is set to fall from about Rs 60,000 to about Rs 16,000 in the coming days as the price war heats up. The drug blocks an enzyme which the virus needs to embed itself in a healthy cell and to programme itself to replicate.

MUMBAI: Pharmaceutical companies in India seem to be conducting a few experiments outside theirlabs too. Among the new initiatives are clever product sharing arrangements with their rivals, so that the cost of development is spread among many players. Also, each of them benefits because a large number of doctors are informed about the product by a large sales army. Companies like Gujarat's Alembic, Hetero Drugs of Hyderabad and Mumbai-based Lupin have forged such alliances, sources say. Experts in pharmaceutical marketing say the trend of companies coming together to collectively push their products is natural as the industry faces pressures of consolidation.

The battle lines between Western pharmaceutical transnationals and NGOs and patients' associations are now drawn sharper than ever before. At the core of the dispute are attempts to get patents for anti-AIDS drugs. NGOs, along with groups of people living with