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ARTICLE | Company News

Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers infectious news

August 1, 2011 7:00 AM UTC

The Medicines Patent Pool said it began negotiations for patents to HIV drugs from Boehringer and Bristol-Myers. The pool, established last year by UNITAID, allows companies to obtain a license to market generic versions of patented HIV/AIDS drugs in developing countries. Boehringer markets HIV drugs Viramune XR nevirapine, an extended-release formulation of Viramune, a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI), and Aptivus tipranavir, a non-peptidic protease inhibitor. Bristol-Myers markets HIV drugs Reyataz atazanavir, an HIV protease inhibitor, and Sustiva efavirenz, an NNRTI. At June 30, Reyataz had six-month, worldwide sales of $762 million and Sustiva had $714 million in sales.

The pool is already in negotiations with Roche (SIX:ROG; OTCQX:RHHBY, Basel, Switzerland), Sequoia Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Gaithersburg, Md.), NIH and ViiV Healthcare LLC, a JV between GlaxoSmithKline plc (LSE:GSK; NYSE:GSK, London, U.K.) and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE, New York, N.Y.). ...