{"id":22461,"date":"2012-10-29T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=22461"},"modified":"2012-10-27T15:44:51","modified_gmt":"2012-10-27T14:44:51","slug":"pharma-vs-india-a-case-of-life-or-death-for-the-worlds-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/10\/pharma-vs-india-a-case-of-life-or-death-for-the-worlds-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharma vs India: A Case of Life or Death for the World\u2019s Poor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cases being heard in Indian courts could \u2018open the floodgates\u2019 for pharmaceutical companies to challenge generic drug production and keep prices ridiculously high.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a worrying time for the poor and the sick. Two cases brought to India\u2019s courts by transnational pharmaceutical companies could massively affect whether people in the Global South can access life-saving medicines. The most significant of these involves Swiss drugmaker Novartis<\/a> which was refused a patent in India for its anti-cancer drug Glivec (imatinib) and is now challenging the country\u2019s patent\u00a0law.<\/p>\n

\u2018People are already dying because they can\u2019t get treatment and if Novartis wins things will become worse,\u2019 says Eldred Tellis, who runs a centre for drug users and people living with HIV in Mumbai. \u2018They are targeting India because many quality generic drugs are produced here for many\u00a0people.\u2019<\/p>\n

Thanks to India\u2019s 1970 Patents Act<\/a>, around one-fifth of the world\u2019s generic drugs \u2013 containing the same active ingredients as a patented drug but made by a different company at a fraction of the price \u2013 are made in the country. As well supplying India\u2019s huge population, these drugs are shipped to poor countries around the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n

\u2018We source 80 per cent of our global HIV medicines, as well as other medicines, from India \u2013 as do the Global Fund,\u2019 says Michelle Childs, Director of Policy and Advocacy at M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF). \u2018So what happens in India can immediately affect other countries and set a precedent for\u00a0them.\u2019<\/p>\n

The problem with patents<\/strong><\/p>\n

Novartis is challenging a clause in the Indian law, \u2018Section 3d,\u2019 that prevents drugs being patented that are modifications of existing drugs, a tactic known as \u2018evergreening\u2019 used to extend patent periods. The company originally failed to patent Glivec in India as it was discovered before the country was forced to start patenting<\/a> drugs in 2005. The latest patent application is based on a salt form of Glivec (imatinib mesylate), which, although being easier to absorb, is arguably no more\u00a0effective.<\/p>\n

Studies<\/a> have found the majority of global research and development (R&D) money is used to produce these minor variations, leading not only to high prices but a lack of genuinely new\u00a0drugs.<\/p>\n

\u2018About 85 per cent of all new drugs are proven to be little or no better, clinically, than existing drugs,\u2019 says Donald Light, professor of comparative healthcare at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. \u2018They are all better than placebo but they are not better than last year\u2019s drug that was better than\u00a0placebo.\u2019<\/p>\n

This is at odds with the pharmaceutical industry argument that the patent system is there to allow companies to receive more money to make new medicines. Producing new drugs is, they say, such an expensive business that only the big companies can afford to do\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

\u2018These are potentially dangerous substances so you really need to do a lot of research,\u2019 says Mark Grayson, deputy vice-president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). \u2018You need to do clinical trials, even after the drug is on the market; you need production plants to be sterile, drugs need to be safe, all these costs need to be borne and they are not\u00a0cheap.\u2019<\/p>\n

What they fail to mention is that the majority of R&D for developing new drugs is publicly funded. This was the case for Glivec, which was also awarded \u2018orphan drug status\u2019 in the US, allowing Novartis to receive tax breaks that paid for a large proportion of the clinical\u00a0trials.<\/p>\n

\u2018The vast majority of the original research on Glivec came from charities and the government,\u2019 says Jamie Love, Director of Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), an intellectual property pressure group. \u2018But at the very end Novartis comes in and gets a patent on it and makes a couple of billion dollars a\u00a0year.\u2019<\/p>\n

These mammoth profits are generated by aggressive pricing. When this court case began in 2006, Novartis sold Glivec for $2,200 per person per month, while the generic version was produced in India for a tenth of that price. That companies could be facing such huge losses to generic competition has wound up the neoliberal press in the US with the Wall Street Journal<\/em> calling it a \u2018drug\u00a0disaster.\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Countries are allowed by the World Trade Organization to produce generic drugs if there is a major public health imperative, a practice known as compulsory licensing. India issued its first compulsory licence in March, ordering German drugmaker Bayer to allow a generic manufacturer to make its cancer drug Nexavar (sorafenib) for one-thirtieth of the usual $5,000 price tag. India\u2019s patent controller argued that not only had Bayer failed to make the drug \u2018reasonably affordable\u2019, it had failed to supply the drug in large enough quantities, a decision Bayer is challenging in the\u00a0courts.<\/p>\n

\u2018With a patent comes obligations, one of which is you make your medicine available in the quantities needed,\u2019 says Michelle\u00a0Childs.<\/p>\n

Targeting the poor<\/strong><\/p>\n

As these cases move through the Indian courts, the bottom line remains that they could significantly impact access to medicines for the world\u2019s poor. If both Novartis and Bayer win, the floodgates could open for companies to challenge the laws and licences that allow generic drug\u00a0production.<\/p>\n

With the vast majority of profits in the pharmaceutical sector being made in wealthy countries, why are poor countries being targeted so aggressively? The answer, like so many others, relates to inequality. While not currently profitable, poorer countries are seen as \u2018emerging markets\u2019 because of their burgeoning middle\u00a0classes.<\/p>\n

\u2018The drug companies see India as a market of 100 million, although that\u2019s less than 10 per cent of the population,\u2019 says Jamie Love. \u2018These are the people they care about, as they are the ones with enough\u00a0money.\u2019<\/p>\n

This desire to keep the Indian \u00e9lite onside may be why Novartis\u2019s chairperson Daniel Vasella reportedly<\/a> donated hundreds of ancient Indian sculptures to a Mumbai museum last month. But most of the people affected by high drug prices will never visit a museum. And most will die knowing nothing about patents, laws, licences or pharmaceutical\u00a0companies.<\/p>\n

\u2018The people we work with on the ground have no idea what\u2019s going on right now in the courts,\u2019 says Eldred Tellis. \u2018But we do, and we know that Novartis losing is their best chance to\u00a0live.\u2019<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 newint.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cases being heard in Indian courts could \u2018open the floodgates\u2019 for pharmaceutical companies to challenge generic drug production and keep prices ridiculously high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}