A company selling a version of an anti-retroviral drug used in the treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS is breaching the Irish patent for the product, it is claimed.

Gilead Sciences Inc, a world leader in the development of treatments for a whole range of illnesses including HIV/AIDS, chronic hepatitis, cardiopulmonary conditions and respiratory diseases, is to buy the Nycomed Limited pharma plant in Carrigtwohill, Co Cork.

Twenty-five years after the first AIDS cases jolted the world, US scientists think they soon may have a pill that could prevent HIV, the virus that causes the disease.