India´s court system rejected a legal bid by pharmaceutical company
Novartis to patent a new version of its cancer drug, Glivec. The ruling was
welcomed by many healthcare campaigners, including NGOs such as Medecins Sans
Frontiers said that the decision will mean that generic drugmakers can still
sell cheaper copies of Glivec in India. Novartis argues that the court´s
decision will discourage future innovation and is a setback that will hinder
medical progress for diseases that have no effective medical treatment.
Officials in India, however, argued that the updated version was only slightly
different from the previous one, but its high cost would deny access to medical
care for many low income
families. This practice of big companies of trying to get fresh patents by
making only minor changes to existing drugs, a practice known as
"evergreening" and although it provides market exclusivity for these
profit maximizing firms, it does so at the expense of denying access to health
and other benefits by low income families and individuals. With this new law,
the abusive practice of seeking many patents for one drug will be curbed,
reinforcing the idea that economic growth aligned with equalitarian practices
and with individual´s interests (especially the poor) put as priorities can
still develop a country in a fairer way.
It is a really interesting article , its been seen for quite some time that many new products which were developed were made only by making some very small changes and there is not absolute innovation in developing them. Putting a patent on it would make it really expensive for the local population to get access to it as most of the population is below the poverty level.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent article. And an excellent decision by the Supreme Court of India. The only actual benefits of having some elements of socialism in India are that the poor people receive cheaper fuel and cheaper healthcare than the market. With this decision, the judicial system has ensured that the millions of below poverty line poor are not taken for a ride by a giant pharmaceutical. This won't have any negative impact on FDI in India or on future innovation as small changes are not really innovations. Actual innovations would be protected by the Intellectual Property Rights of India as they have always been. The Indian Government never encouraged its producers to reverse engineer or copy foreign goods, unlike South Korea (in the 60s and 70s) or China (till present day).
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ReplyDeleteThis decision brings into sharp focus, the line between when patents should be issued and when they should not. In this case, the product is simply an updated version of a previous product and probably does not require a patent, especially in a situation where it will make a drug required by many people unreasonably expensive for lower income families.
However, innovation will likely not stagnate since laws exist to protect major discoveries. I believe the decision made here was correct and will in the end have beneficial outcomes.