India has granted a patent to US pharmaceutical giant Gilead for a blockbuster Hepatitis C drug, in a U-turn activists said could potentially stop affordable copies reaching millions of people in other countries. The drug, Sovaldi, which costs $1,000 a pill in the United States, was rejected for a patent in January 2015 following opposition by health activists who said the science was not sufficiently new. But after an appeal by Gilead, the Indian Patent Office on Monday granted its application for the drug, chemically known as sofosbuvir, saying it found the "compounds novel, inventive and patentable".