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Indian Supreme Court Denies Novartis Cancer Drug Patent
beltsbear writes "Following a reasonable view of drug patents, the Indian courts have decided that making small changes to an existing patented drug are not worthy of a new patent. This ruling makes way for low cost Indian cancer drugs that will save lives. From the Article: 'Novartis lost a six-year legal battle after the court ruled that small changes and improvements to the drug Glivec did not amount to innovation deserving of a patent. The ruling opens the way for generic companies in India to manufacture and sell cheap copies of the drug in the developing world and has implications for HIV and other modern drugs too.'"
Only a complete fool, April or otherwise, would base anything on imaginary property. There is nothing intellectual about that.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Oh and the numbers I gave are based on the U.S. Dollar, inside the United States.
I've been in remission for over 3 years thanks to Gleevec, but it still sucks that they (Novartis) push for profiteering over saving lives.
The original invention/discovery was made before the date after which drugs are eligible for patent protection in India. So the original invention was too early and the changes were not sufficient for a new patent that would have been after drigs became eligible for protection in India
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Problem is this practice is a bit more widespread than just one drug. It's called "evergreening". You take a drug, you make a minute change to it, you tell everybody its fresh&new&patent plx!
India said no to that. They said that Novartis had its run of the full duration of patent protection and that it wouldn't be fooled.
Also Novartis does bill patients thousands of dollars per month for this particular drug. Which is extortionist. A little bit competition is more than just a little bit needed.
The big news is India said no while Europe and the US said yes.
20 minutes into the future
Now, NOVARTIS will start making generics.
Generic drugs made by third parties are sorely needed by non G8 nations across the world. Indian companies are the leaders in making generics....like Chinese companies in making electronics / hardware. The argument of multinationals pharma companies like NOVARTIS claims the high cost of R & D for inventing new drugs for keeping up the high price. This has been debunked by the report on TIME (and many other sources) which proved the same drug or treatments costs vary highly depending on who pays. And such costs are amortized from G8 nations itself. Also none of these companies are making any losses in their balance sheet whatsoever...what they demand is permanent 'rent seeking'.
Today's TIME has an OPED by their Delhi correspondent with grave warnings on future of Indian pharma - the type of warnings issued by World Bank / IMF / West on Developing countries - basically on the lines on "do as I say, not as I do". I guess NOVARTIS marketing droids called TIME headquarters and asked them to run a sympathetic piece. We are talking about a company with $54 billion sales and $9 billion plus profit in 2012! Imagine their power. And now imagine the 'purported losses' on a few drugs going out of patent in developing countries - it will be negligible at best.
There is no way any Indian - except for the 2-3% of the elite - can afford a $2600 ~ Rs 130000 / - cost for a month long treatment. This is a country with no health social safety net other than public medical colleges and affordable primary health care facilities and medicines. (Private Health Insurance is a new phenomenon, slowly catching on, the advantages and disadvantages we know...we have to look at USA.)
The only argument which can be made against Indian generics - "if you can't afford the drug, why don't you suffer the consequences". I guess even the most hard nosed penny pinching corporate drone is not THAT heartless.
Instead of fighting the generic manufacturers, NOVARTIS should create their own special generic versions and beat them on a price point. But the suits running the show looked at some powerpoint and decided, lets first fight, if we lose start making generics.
Tat Tvam Asi
"Evergreening"
This is a process where pharma companies make teeny weeny changes to compound and get a new patent, bypassing the 20 year limit on patents. Indian law(thankfully) does not allow "Evergreening". Patents cannot be issued on "new versions" or "slight changes".
The courts are very sensitive to this, and will not allow pharma companies to get away.
What this ruling has done is that many more common drugs can now be sold as generics. Cancer is a relatively rare disorder, but there are other more common diseases where patented drugs are very expensive.
With this ruling generics will get a big boost. Not only that, there is a push by the govt to prevent doctors from recommending "brands" and recommend generic brand name drugs which are 1/10 the cost, or even cheaper.
There has been lot of pressure by the WTO to allow corporate to plunder the masses, but the govt has held out on its own. There are many things wrong with India. Thankfully. patent system as it stands today is not one of the things wrong!
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Do you honestly think that is true? That researchers won't do any research suddenly? that all that money collected to help pay for research won't actually be collected any more?
Certainly the researchers paid by Pharma companies (to the tune of tens of billions a year in the US) won't be doing research any longer. Those who work for the NIH would be completely unaffected by a change to the patent system.
There is a lot of ignorance about how the costs break down for drug development. Here is how it works:
1. Government and academic R&D spends a few million to come up with a cure for cancer in mice. Discovery makes front page of NYT.
2. Pharma company pays government or academic lab $100k to license the molecule. Activists point out that this amounts to corporate welfare.
3. Pharma company goes on to spend $10M to show that the molecule will never work in people. Drug dies with no publicity.
That's basically the drug development model - the drugs that actually get marketed are an aberration. Most companies do heavy investment in testing dozens of drug candidates per year (the ones that make it fairly far), and they only release maybe a few per decade. Far more drugs get rejected early in testing before anybody even hears about them.
However, once in a while you get to step 4:
4. Pharma company spends about $100M on the molecule and it works out. Activists point out that the company is making billions per year on a drug that only cost $100M.
You can only spend $100M to get a successful drug if you know in advance which drug will be successful. That only applies if you're copying the work done by some other company (though you don't need all that testing in the first place on a true copy). The reality is that it costs billions to come up with a new drug, because you have to test a lot of stuff that doesn't work.
Drug discovery is a bit like ice hockey, but make the goals about half their current size. Lots of passing and skating, little scoring.