Slashdot Mirror
Indian Gov't Uses Special Powers To Slash Cancer Drug Price By 97%
suraj.sun sends this quote from the Times of India:
"In a landmark decision that could set a precedent on how life-saving drugs under patents can be made affordable, the government has allowed a domestic company, Natco Pharma, to manufacture a copycat version of Bayer's patented anti-cancer drug, Nexavar, bringing down its price by 97%. In the first-ever case of compulsory licensing approval, the Indian Patent Office on Monday cleared the application of Hyderabad's Natco Pharma to sell generic drug Nexavar, used for renal and liver cancer, at Rs 8,880 (around $175) for a 120-capsule pack for a month's therapy. Bayer offers it for over Rs 2.8 lakh (roughly $5,500) per 120 capsules. The order provides hope for patients who cannot afford these drugs. The approval paves the way for the launch of Natco's drug in the market, a company official told TOI, adding that it will pay a 6% royalty on net sales every quarter to Bayer."
I know I'm going to burn karma for saying this (wouldn't be the first time), but do keep in mind that the R&D costs for developing these drugs is paid from the profits these companies make. Now, maybe governments themselves should be doing the development instead of for-profit companies, maybe the drug company profits are too high, and maybe Bayer were dicks to charge that much for a drug in a poor country. But if you're going to keep the system as-is, you had think long and hard before you just start ripping patents left-and-right. It may be politically popular, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.
If you're going to say "X company doesn't get to patent its drugs" you need to come up with a replacement for the money that X company put into its research and development. If the government wants to serve its people this way, that's fine, but they also have an obligation to pony up the money for their own R&D program (and not one that just does knockoffs of existing drugs). Because without that profit motive from those patents, the drug companies sure aren't going to be developing anything new.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
average life expectancy according to an article on the BBC is extended by only 3 months -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8367614.stm
with results like that, you have to overcharge like hell to get your money cause the patients will only be around three more months than usual if they weren't taking the drug -
but if you're desperate and dying anyways, why not blow 2 months salary on a 120 day supply, right? And yet, I have no sympathy for the drug companies - I wonder why....could it be their way of using lawsuits to keep generics off the market for a few extra years while they re-release a "timed" version of their product?
Drug companies are vultures - and I'd love to see more university/public funding of this research for the public interest and less for the profit motive - especially when lives are at stake
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
That argument does not work in this situation. Bayer had priced the drug so high in India that it was clear they had no interest in serving the Indian market. I'm on a listserv for this type of information, and someone close to the issue noted that "Last year Bayer sold 493 boxes of 120 tabs of Sorafenib in India. That was enough for about 49 people, in a country with a population of 1,210,193,422."
Any money Bayer was making in India off this drug was a rounding error compared to the lucrative North American and European markets. Furthermore, Bayer argued to the Indian court that the Indian population did have access to the drug through an infringing version produced by Cipla, while at the same time Bayer was suing Cipla for patent infringement, trying to get their product off the market.
Given the 6% royalty rate that NATCO has to pay to Bayer, I wouldn't be suprised if Bayer ends up making more money with the compulsory license than before.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
If a drug has been patented, and made it's way through FDA approval, it's chemistry is well known, and any decent lab will be able to make it. Not selling in a market is only cutting off the nose to spite the face. They will continue to sell in that market, because rich people will still pay for it rather than the generic.
R&D are sunk costs. *Any* sales over your fixed production costs results in profit. If you want to maximize profit, you sell. (Of course, as others have pointed out, you have to make sure none of the low cost sales gets resold to someone in another country. YMMV)
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Thanks for the quick reply. You make it sound very noble especially the foreign corporation bit. Your argument is: ignore everything everywhere when it benefits the citizens? Please, I'm not a defender of corporations, but surely you must see that this is a slippery slope?
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
If they won't settle for less profit, someone else will be prepared to take their position in the market.
Who is "they"? Spoken like a guy who doesn't own stocks. Scare investment capital from drug companies, and it won't go elsewhere in the market - it will go to Exxon and Apple! Buh-bye, private R&D!
Government will never give out free gas and iPhones, so my investment dollars will go there.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Only a handful of truly important drugs have been brought to market in recent years, and they were mostly based on taxpayer-funded research at academic institutions, small biotechnology companies, or the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Nice general talking points there, now how about some proof in the form of cites?
Besides, it's utterly pointless to say one does more than the other. How about encouraging as much funding you can going toward lifesaving drug research, instead of private sector capital fleeing to oil companies and tech?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Your argument is: ignore everything everywhere when it benefits the citizens? Please, I'm not a defender of corporations, but surely you must see that this is a slippery slope?
Well, if governments are not supposed to work for the benefit of their citizens, then I have to wonder what you think the proper thing for a government to do might be. Where would you suggest that slippery slope leads?
Keep in mind that the governments of the US and of western European nations work very hard to benefit their citizens at the expense of other nations, which is basically how India found itself in this situation. The west became wealthy through the exploitation of other countries; even our poorest citizens have better lives than the citizens of some of the countries we took advantage of. We pushed other countries to adopt certain industrial regulations that our corporations wanted, like copyrights and patents, rather than using our influence to affect changes that would benefit the working class (e.g. better education, better food and water, better living conditions, etc.). If we are willing to let another nation languish in poverty so that we can continue to exploit its labor force, we really cannot complain when other countries ignore corporate profits so that their citizens can get affordable medicines.
At the end of the day, a government that is not doing what benefits its citizens is a government that fails the legitimacy test.
Palm trees and 8