Medicines: For Saving Life or For Superprofits?

Will patent rights be used only for ensuring the legitimate interests of pharmaceutical companies, or will these be used in an exaggerated and unjust way to deprive patients of their right to life? This crucial question, which has been debated time and again in the context of the significant case of Glivec, an anti-cancer drug, has now reached a critical stage.

It may be pointed out here that as early as 2006 many prominent persons and organisations from all over the world had petitioned the Chairman of Novartis, the multinational company which produces Glivec, to drop the pursuit of its case for patent right over this medicine. But the multinational giant has obviously not given up even after the rejection of its patent claim by the Chennai Patent Office, the Madras High Court and the Intellectual Property Appellate Board during the period 2006-09. The case is now in the Supreme Court.

As patients diagnosed for chronic myeloid leukemia have to take Glivec (imatinib mesylate) for the rest of their life, the price of this medicine is of crucial importance for deciding whether it’ll be affordable for most patients or not. While Indian companies producing generic versions of this medicine are able to supply this at the rate of about Rs one lakh per patient per year, Novartis markets Glivec internationally at a price which can cost patients about 12 times that amount.

Clearly if generic versions are not available, then this medicine will be priced out of the reach of most patients not only in India but also in many other poor and developing countries, as the supply in these other countries is also based on exports of Indian companies. Of course, many patients can’t even afford the generic versions, but several charitable and health organisations are able to provide them the generic versions. But if due to patents the prices increase many times, then the budgets of these organisations will clearly not be adequate to maintain these supplies.

Thus this is a clear case for questioning whether the superprofits of a company are more important than the lives of lakhs of patients. Clearly in all such cases it is the right to life which is supreme.

The significance of this case is not confined to cancer patients. If the claim for patent rights is allowed to lead to a steep escalation of this life-saving drug, then tomorrow a similar increase can take place in the price of medicines for HIV-AIDS, heart diseases etc.

In fact even the technical claim for patents in the case of several such medicines is highly dubious as there are mainly refined or toned-up versions of already existing medicines.

At the time of the earlier debate on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), it was pointed out that many of the new rules will be heavily detrimental for the health sector. So there needs to be a wider campaign against TRIPS as well as the heavy penetration of the medicine sector by multinational companies. The more this domination is allowed to increase and the bigger the withdrawal of the public sector manufacturers and regulatory framework, the more difficult will it become for the common people to obtain essential medicines at affordable prices.