Pharmaceutical manufacturers Viatris and Innovata have sought leave to appeal against last month’s High Court judgment setting aside their contracts to supply the state with the HIV treatment used by most of South Africa’s patients, Business Day reports.
In a ruling handed down on 20 October, Acting Judge Graham Girdwood upheld an application brought by Cipla Medpro, and found Viatris and Innovata should have been disqualified from competing for the contracts to supply pills combining tenofovir, lamivudine and dolutegravir because their manufacturing licences had expired when the bid window closed.
He scrapped their contracts for monthly and three-monthly packs of TLD, found Cipla had been unfairly excluded, and ordered the health department to reconsider the tender.
The department was given 120 days to reconsider eligible bidders and revise how the contracts are split. The total Aids drug tender is worth R15.5bn, of which the TLD contracts are worth R12.2bn. Innovata’s shares of the two TLD contracts are worth R1.575bn, while Viatris’ shares amount to R1.67bn.
A spokesperson for Viatris said the company was unable to comment, as the legal matter was ongoing. Viatris filed papers on Monday setting out the grounds for a potential appeal, in which it challenged the legal basis on which the judge found it should have been disqualified.
It homed in on the licensing requirements, arguing that it had been waiting for its manufacturing licence to be renewed by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority when the bid window closed, and that this was not sufficient grounds for it to be disqualified. It said it held a valid import licence when the bid window closed.
Innovata, which filed papers last week, did not respond to Business Day’s request for comment. Its argument setting out the grounds for appeal also challenges the judge’s finding that it should have been excluded because it did not have a valid manufacturing licence when the bid window closed. It challenged the judge’s directive that its independence from Barrs — which also won shares of the TLD contracts — should be investigated.
Business Day – Viatris and Innovata seek leave to appeal court order on HIV drug tender