INDIA DENIED THE RIGHT TO PRODUCE AFFORDABLE MEDS
(14 November 2006 ).

Leading charity Oxfam has recently taken on the pharmaceutical giant Novartis in its campaign of putting patients before patents. Oxfam activists are demanding that developing countries are granted the right to produce affordable medicines. On 14 November 2006, activists recreated a hospital ward in Victoria, Central London, posing as patients who have been diagnosed ‘too poor for medicines’.

In a new report entitled 'Patents v Patients: Five Years After the Doha Declaration', Oxfam claims that that rich countries are taking little or no action towards their obligations to help poor countries protect public health and are in some cases actually undermining the declaration.

PHARMS COMPANIES CLAIM MORE COLLABORATION IS NEEDED

Pharmaceuticals companies are concerned about the increase in generics medicines for the export market and how this will impact their future investment in R&D. In 2005, cancer patients groups in India used intellectual property law to stop a patent application by the Swiss company Novartis for its anti cancer drug, Glivec. This meant that Indian companies could continue making generic versions of Glivec at £1,400 per year, as opposed to the Novartis monopoly priced version of the same drug for sale at more than £14,000 per year.

However Novartis recently appealed the court’s decision. “Novartis has told Oxfam that there is no commercial market for Glivec in India and that it is challenging India in order to align Indian intellectual property law with TRIPS”, Charveriat says. “However, India is only trying to use the flexibilities rightfully available to it under TRIPS and Novartis is trying to block that right”.

On its corporate website, Novartis states "In an effort to quantify the contribution made by the overall pharmaceutical industry to sustainable development, along with other pharmaceutical companies, Novartis participated in a survey spearheaded by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA). The results, unveiled in December 2005, show that, since the United Nations proclaimed their Millennium Development Goals in 2000, the industry has created 126 health partnerships that have made available medicines, vaccines, equipment, health education and manpower worth USD 4.38 billion, providing more than 540 million treatments to patients.

Despite this important contribution to people’s lives in the world’s poorest countries, responding to the huge public health challenge will require even more collaboration between the private and public sectors, as well as creativity and hard work. The health of people in developing countries cannot be improved simply by increasing the amount of drugs that companies donate. It also requires infrastructural changes, i.e. more clean water, better sanitation, improved clinics and hospitals as well as better training and retention of healthcare workers. Pharmaceutical companies are directly providing more and more of this kind of grass-roots help."

Further more, the company states that "hrough our three public-private partnerships with the World Health Organization (WHO) to combat leprosy, malaria and tuberculosis, we provide medicines at cost – or sometimes free – to patients in the developing world afflicted by these diseases. We also offer discounts and support programs to patients in industrialized countries without medical insurance or other financial resources."

On the Glivec issue, the Novartis 'Access to Medicines' programme site claims "For the breakthrough cancer therapy Gleevec/Glivec, Novartis designed one of the most far-reaching patient assistance programs ever implemented on a global scale. Over the last three years, the Glivec International Patient Assistance Program (GIPAP) has been expanded to 79 countries and in 2005 provided Glivec free of charge to more than 15 000 patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). "

We reprint here, Oxfam's case study on from 'Patents v Patients':

IN INDIA 1.42 BILLION PEOPLE CANNOT AFFORD MEDICINES

Premavati is a 60-year-old widow living in the suburbs of Delhi, India. She suffers from a type of cancer called Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and has spent all her savings - more than 40, 000 Rupees (c.$900) - on medicines. "My husband died two years ago," says Premavati. "We have absolutely no savings. Of my two sons, one is a casual labourer, the other has no job. My daughter is 30, has two children and is also a widow."

Because of her desperate situation, Premavati has almost resigned herself to the idea that she will die without medicines. "How will I raise the money for my treatment?" she says. "Already, I've spent what we had. If nobody helps, I'll just have to die without medicines."

Everyone who needs it should have access to medicines and health services, regardless of their sex, age, or income level. Yet, in developing countries such as India, roughly 1.42 billion people cannot get the life-saving essential medicines they need. A major reason for this is that they can't afford them.

80% OF PERSONAL INCOME GOES ON MEDICINES

Gopa Kumar, senior researcher at The Centre for Trade and Development, an advocacy group in New Delhi, says: "In India, where the majority of people don't have health insurance or support programmes, estimates say that in some cases, about 80 per cent of personal income goes on buying medicines alone."

"I wonder if the people in power are listening," says Dr Gopal Dabade, of the Drug Action Forum in the southern state of Karnataka. "If we don't put pressure on the government and make medicines available, poor people will continue to suffer and die," he says.

INDIA: THE WORLD'S LEADING SUPPLIER OF GENERICS

India is the world's leading supplier of inexpensive generic medicines, with approximately 67% of them being exported to developing countries. A few years ago, they made a groundbreaking contribution to the availability of affordable HIV medicines by producing and marketing the 'first-line, triple-combination drug'. This was possible because patenting of medicines was not allowed in India until the Indian Patent Act was amended in 2005 to comply with requirements set out by the World Trade Organisation's TRIPS Agreement (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). This new amendment paves the way for a 20-year minimum period of product patent protection, including medicines. Put simply, this raises the price of a wide range of medicines, making them increasingly unaffordable to poor people.

"I know how tough it was to pay for my first-line treatment," says 35-year-old Umashanker Pandey. "I have lost six kilos in weight in the last three months. My body's response to first-line ARVs is failing and I simply can't afford the second-line treatment."

His only wish is to stay alive to see his elder daughter, now aged 15, get married. "I am worried, because voices like mine are not counted by anyone, not even my government. I do not have any idea how many like me have started counting down the days," he says. Umashanker's wife, and the youngest of his five children, who is eight, are also HIV-positive.

He says he knows of 18 other people in his home town who are in the same position that he is in - urgently needing to begin the 'second-line treatment', but unable to afford it. Umashanker knew a man, only 35 years old, who died last month. "He would have lived if he had been able to have medicines on time," he says.

Hundreds of thousands of people like Umashanker can be saved if only developing countries can ensure that their TRIPS-compliant patent laws provide a balance of rights and obligations - ensuring that people's lives are put before drug companies' profits.