Bangladesh makes hepatitis wonder drug

A Bangladeshi drug manufacturer has made a global mark by producing low-cost hepatitis-C medicine for the first time in the world.

Incepta Pharmaceuticals Ltd has produced a $10 version of Sovaldi that the patented company Gilead Sciences Inc sells for $1000 each pill in the US.

Gilead gave license to 11 Indian generic drug manufacturers to produce a low-cost version, but Incepta, which does not have a Gilead license, did so much earlier on its own initiative.

BloombergBusiness has reported this as an achievement for the company.

“WHO and Doctors Without Border have begun talks with us to buy this drug for African countries,” the company’s Managing Director Abdul Muktadir told bdews24.com.

He said they launched this drug in the Bangladesh market last month. “With this drug, medicine for hepatitis C treatment will cost only Tk 60,000”.

BloombergBusiness said nations not covered by Gilead’s license, including Thailand, Malaysia and Morocco, and countries where Sovaldi was not patented could benefit from Incepta’s cheap copies.

Incepta’s price of about $900 for 12 weeks is the same price at which Gilead will offer its branded version of the drug in India, it said.

“Even so, the Bangladeshi version shows the challenge facing Gilead from companies it doesn’t have agreements with in countries where the drug isn’t patented”.

The Incepta MD told bdnews24.com that he took advantage of the WTO’s rules for the LDCs that say LDCs do not have to protect pharmaceutical patents.

“We received tremendous appreciation for our capabilities”.

Incepta, with its strong local roots, started its venture in 1999. It has more than 600 products registered in Bangladesh ranging from tablets to human insulin.

It has been ranked by the Intercontinental Marketing Services as the fastest growing among the top five manufacturing companies in 2008. 

They launched a separate vaccine unit in 2012 for the first time in Bangladesh and also produced swine flu (H1N1) vaccine and drug Oseltamivir.

It also exports drugs to at least 40 countries including regulated markets like Finland, the UK, and Turkey.

This copy of Sovaldi will be aimed at middle-income countries like Brazil, Thailand and Morocco, where hepatitis C is prevalent.

Gilead in an email reply told BloombergBusiness that they were “aware of unauthorized generic versions of sofosbuvir (Sovaldi) being offered in the marketplace”.

“We’re focused on enabling our eleven Indian generic partners to launch their authorized generic versions as soon as possible”.