The debate over drug prices - whether Sovaldi should be sold as a much cheaper generic - reflects a growing tension between global pharmaceutical companies and developing countries. "The pressure coming from the United States is to protect its own industries, and India has every right to protect its own industries and to protect public health," said Tahir Amin, co-founder and director of intellectual property at the Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge in New York. [...] drugmakers have watched with alarm as many of those countries have taken increasingly aggressive actions to block patents and push inexpensive versions of branded drugs onto the market. In the past two years, India has partially or fully stripped patents granted to Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Merck for treatments for cancers, hepatitis C and asthma, mostly on grounds that included lack of innovation. When India allowed a manufacturer to make a generic version of one of Bayer's patented cancer drugs, the monthly cost fell 97 percent, from $5,500 to $175. Thailand has broken patents on drugs for HIV and heart disease, and so has Indonesia for HIV and hepatitis B treatments. In India, an estimated 12 million people have hepatitis C, a contagious liver disease transmitted through contact with the blood of an infected person.