February 2, 2007
Press Statement
The
Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following
statement:
Novartis
Case : Assault on the Patents Act
The CPI(M) and Left parties in Parliament were able to introduce a number of safeguards in the Amended Patents Act that India was forced to adopt in 2005 in order to make the Act TRIPS compliant. At the instance of the Left parties, important public health safeguards were introduced that are now clearly emerging as targets of attacks by the pharmaceutical MNCs. The recent Novartis challenge in Chennai High Court of one such section of the Amended Patents Act in the Gleevec case is a precursor to more challenges that are likely to be filed as the Indian Patents Office rejects a number of similar patent applications.
Gleevec, a vital anti
leukaemia drug, is a test case for the Indian Patents Act. If the Gleevec patent
were accepted, then it would cost Rs. 1,20,000 for a month's medicine as against
the indigenous cost of only Rs. 8,000. In the Gleevec case, the Swiss
multinational – Novartis, had filed a patent application for a slightly
modified
version of a drug that they had patented in 1993. The section of the Indian
Patents Act (Section 3(d)) – which prevents frivolous patents based on small
tinkering on existing molecules – has now been challenged by Novartis in the
Chennai High Court. A number of second line AIDS drugs were also known before
1995 and
therefore cannot be granted patents in India. However, drug MNCs are trying to
patent them by offering two drugs as a mixture or claiming new use or in a new
form, some of the common tricks in "evergreening" old patents. If
Section 3 (d) is removed or diluted as the drug majors are asking, these tactics
may work and a major public health protection in India would then be breached.
This will result in price of AIDS medicines becoming 20-50 times their current
value, as more and more patients shift to second line AIDS drugs. As India is
the major source of AIDS medicines today, this would have a worldwide impact.
The drug majors are also mischievously trying to confuse the existing 3 (d)
provisions of the Act with Mashelkar Committee's report on New Pharmaceutical or
Chemical Entities. The Left parties had asked that in addition to 3 (d), patents
for pharmaceuticals should be restricted to only new chemical or pharmaceutical
entities. While CPI(M) completely disagrees with Mashelkar Committee's
recommendations on the above and also on micro-organisms, this has nothing to do
with Section 3 (d) of the existing Act.
The CPI(M) calls upon the Indian
Government to vigorously defend the Indian Patents Act in the Indian courts and
also in international platforms. They cannot be allowed to compromise the
interests of the patients suffering from life threatening diseases such as
leukaemia and AIDS. The government while
defending the Act in court should also use international platforms to mobilize
opinion against the greed for
profits by such pharmaceutical companies.
