US fears for patents on next generation drugs in India

[Devil Soul]

US fears for patents on next generation drugs in India
REUTERS
Updated 2014-03-06 16:30:09
NEW DELHI: The United States on Thursday voiced concern over protection of patents on safer and more effective next-generation medicines in India amid fears that authorities are considering allowing more Indian firms to make new varieties of cheap generic drugs still on patent.

An Indian committee is reviewing up to a dozen patented drugs to see if so-called compulsory licences, which in effect break exclusivity rights, can be issued for some of them, two senior government officials said last month.

“I understand that India has issued one compulsory licence,but there's a lot of concern about what additional licences are being considered,” US Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Biswal told reporters in the Indian capital.

“There's concern about ... whether next-generation drugs would be protected, and how do you ensure that investments that are being made to develop ever-more effective drugs can then be continued.”

In 2012, India issued its first-ever compulsory licence to domestic drug maker Natco Pharma Ltd on a kidney and liver cancer drug, Nexavar, patented by Germany's Bayer AG.

That and a series of recent decisions on patented drugs in India, as part of New Delhi's push to increase access to life-saving treatments, is at the centre of trade friction between Asia's third-largest economy and the United States.

Like other emerging markets, such as South Africa and China,India is battling to bring down healthcare costs and boost access to drugs to treat diseases such as cancer, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

Western drug makers, including Pfizer Inc, Novartis AG, Roche Holding AG and Sanofi SA,covet a bigger share of the fast-growing drugs market in India.

But they have been frustrated by a series of decisions on patents and pricing, as part of New Delhi's push to increase access to treatments in a country where only 15 percent of the1.2 billion people have health insurance. “The constant threat of compulsory licences hangs like a Damocles sword over patent-holders,” Ranjit Shahani, vice chairman and managing director of Novartis' India unit, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

“Over the past two years, the government of India has issued several intellectual property decisions that disproportionately impact innovative bio pharmaceutical companies,” he said.

“Notonly is this a concern for business in the Indian market, but also in other emerging markets that may see India as a model to be emulated.” India is on the US government's Priority Watch List -countries whose practices on protecting intellectual property Washington believes should be monitored closely.

US industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) believes Washington should take a tougher line by downgrading it to a Priority Foreign Country,a classification for the worst offenders, which could trigger possible actions, sources said last month.

If India is relegated by the U.S. to Priority Foreign Country level, it would join Ukraine as the second country in that segment. Countries in the Priority Watch List include China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia, Thailand and Argentina.

 

[hari sud]

Go ahead and do it.

Are Chinese loosing a lot of sleep over this issue? You are still doing a a trillion dollars worth of trade and sending $100 billion in FDI every year.

Have you stopped doing business with Indonesia, Russia, Thialand or Argentina?

You need India when the shit it's the fan. If Ukraine crisis worsen, you need Indian support badly.

 

[sarthak]

Go ahead and do it.

Are Chinese loosing a lot of sleep over this issue? You are still doing a a trillion dollars worth of trade and sending $100 billion in FDI every year.

Have you stopped doing business with Indonesia, Russia, Thialand or Argentina?

You need India when the shit it's the fan. If Ukraine crisis worsen, you need Indian support badly.

Are you freakin retarded? You overestimate India's importance to the US. We are a small regional player and don't even come into the equation as far as the Ukraine crisis is concerned. In any case , we are always going to support Russia on the Ukraine conflict regardless of whether they are right or wrong ,since they are our closest ally.
There's no need for the arrogance you are displaying. Arrogance can be displayed when we are in the right. In this case, we are basically stealing drugs that western companies spent millions of dollars researching and making. What do you think of them? Are they a bunch of chuti**as that they'll keep researching new drugs only for us to steal and distribute for free? We might have the moral high ground in this case but what we are doing is certainly legally wrong. How would you feel if an Indian company that employees thousands of people spends billions of dollars developing a new drug that the Americans copy and start distributing for free and as a result , all those people lose their jobs? It's all good as long as we allow generics when their patents have expired , but this compulsory license thing is certainly wrong. A better way to do this is to negotiate with the company to provide a certain number of these life saving drugs at low prices to the Indians that are affected by this disease. The loss to the company would be a thousand times lesser compared to a situation where generics are allowed and exported all over the world at 2% of the cost of the original medicine.

 

[That Guy]

Vital medicine shouldn't be patented at all.

 

[hari sud]

Are you freakin retarded? You overestimate India's importance to the US. We are a small regional player and don't even come into the equation as far as the Ukraine crisis is concerned. In any case , we are always going to support Russia on the Ukraine conflict regardless of whether they are right or wrong ,since they are our closest ally.
There's no need for the arrogance you are displaying. Arrogance can be displayed when we are in the right. In this case, we are basically stealing drugs that western companies spent millions of dollars researching and making. What do you think of them? Are they a bunch of chuti**as that they'll keep researching new drugs only for us to steal and distribute for free? We might have the moral high ground in this case but what we are doing is certainly legally wrong. How would you feel if an Indian company that employees thousands of people spends billions of dollars developing a new drug that the Americans copy and start distributing for free and as a result , all those people lose their jobs? It's all good as long as we allow generics when their patents have expired , but this compulsory license thing is certainly wrong. A better way to do this is to negotiate with the company to provide a certain number of these life saving drugs at low prices to the Indians that are affected by this disease. The loss to the company would be a thousand times lesser compared to a situation where generics are allowed and exported all over the world at 2% of the cost of the original medicine.

Your suggestion of negotiating with the companies to provide drugs at low prices has already been tried for up-teen years. Copy was the last measure. These are being copied after expiry of patents. The drug companies fraudulently re-patent these drugs. That is where the problem.

Now the case would go for WTO and arbitration. US most unlikely to win because their case is weak.

 

[Bhasad Singh Mundi]

Are you freakin retarded? You overestimate India's importance to the US. We are a small regional player and don't even come into the equation as far as the Ukraine crisis is concerned. In any case , we are always going to support Russia on the Ukraine conflict regardless of whether they are right or wrong ,since they are our closest ally.
There's no need for the arrogance you are displaying. Arrogance can be displayed when we are in the right. In this case, we are basically stealing drugs that western companies spent millions of dollars researching and making. What do you think of them? Are they a bunch of chuti**as that they'll keep researching new drugs only for us to steal and distribute for free? We might have the moral high ground in this case but what we are doing is certainly legally wrong. How would you feel if an Indian company that employees thousands of people spends billions of dollars developing a new drug that the Americans copy and start distributing for free and as a result , all those people lose their jobs? It's all good as long as we allow generics when their patents have expired , but this compulsory license thing is certainly wrong. A better way to do this is to negotiate with the company to provide a certain number of these life saving drugs at low prices to the Indians that are affected by this disease. The loss to the company would be a thousand times lesser compared to a situation where generics are allowed and exported all over the world at 2% of the cost of the original medicine.

Copy kar Copy, PPl are dying because they cannot afford it, Dont apply too much brain where its not required. And what legality you are talking about. Its all designed by West.

 

[sarthak]

Vital medicine shouldn't be patented at all.

Dude, then new drugs for diseases that haven't been cured will never be created and people will continue to die. The sole motivator in the society we live in is profit or wealth creation. Why would a company then invest millions of dollars in research to create new drugs if they are not going to get a patent on them?

Your suggestion of negotiating with the companies to provide drugs at low prices has already been tried for up-teen years. Copy was the last measure. These are being copied after expiry of patents. The drug companies fraudulently re-patent these drugs. That is where the problem.

Now the case would go for WTO and arbitration. US most unlikely to win because their case is weak.

I agree , you are right about many companies fraudulently tweaking some drugs and applying for a re- patent. That was recently the case with Novartis and our Supreme Court ruled against it. That's the way to go forward for these type of companies. However, some patents are indeed genuine and should be respected.

 

[doublemaster]

One of the most important decision taken by MMS government was giving the licenses to Indian company to produce drugs...Lots of medicines are much cheaper now comparatively with their western counterparts... Those companies fought case in court and lost.

Some of the cancer drugs costs 3-4 Lakhs in CHina, But in India very few thousands...Many of my chinese frends get these medicines to china from India.

 

[That Guy]

Dude, then new drugs for diseases that haven't been cured will never be created and people will continue to die. The sole motivator in the society we live in is profit or wealth creation. Why would a company then invest millions of dollars in research to create new drugs if they are not going to get a patent on them?

I never said they shouldn't be allowed to sell the drug, but vital medicine that can slow down disease shouldn't be patented. All patenting does is make medicine more expensive and is anti-competitive. There is a reason why the terms "patent trolling" and "patent wars" exist. Motivation from profits is fine, but there is a difference between morally gained profits and immorally gained profits. Patented medicine stops generic drug manufacturers from producing cheap medicines for the poor, and stops the costs from decreasing, because one company holds all the rights to it, who can dictate the price.

It's wrong to assume that patenting increases competition, and innovation, that's just wrong. Where there is a need, there is a profit to be had, regardless of patents. Medical corporations won't give up making new medicines just because they can't get a patent for it, why? Because they'll receive profits regardless of a patent or not. Medicare is one of the biggest profit generating industries in the world, a small loss in profit (which is what would occur) won't be as big a deal as they like to make it out to be.