ACCESS TO MEDICINES

Pharmaceutical company Novartis is taking the Indian government to court. If the company wins, millions of people across the globe could have their sources of affordable medicines dry up.

Novartis was one of the 39 companies that took the South African government to court five years ago, in an effort to overturn the country's medicines act that was designed to bring drug prices down. Now Novartis is up to it again and is targeting India.

India is a major source of affordable medicines, such as antiretrovirals to treat HIV/AIDS. Until 2005, the country did not grant patents on medicines, allowing Indian companies to freely produce inexpensive generic versions of medicines patented in other countries. These were used both domestically and in other developing countries. Over half the medicines currently used for AIDS treatment in developing countries come from India and such medicines are used to treat over 80 percent of the 80,000 people living with HIV/AIDS who are enrolled in Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières projects. But World Trade Organization rules now require India to grant drug patents, which could lead to India drying up as a source of affordable medicines.

Fortunately, India designed a patent law that aims to protect public health by stating that patents should only be granted on medicines that are truly innovative. This was specifically targeted at preventing a common practice of drug companies of trying to get patents on insignificant improvements of existing drugs, in order to extend their monopolies on drugs as long as possible. Indian law is strict about which drugs should and shouldn't be patented. One provision of the law that is unique to India says that no patent should be granted on a merely minor adjustment of an existing drug or molecule. This means that companies should not be able to patent drugs that aren't really new, such as combinations or slightly improved formulations of existing drugs.

Based on this part of the law, India for the first time ever decided to reject a drug patent in January 2006, on the cancer drug imatinib mesylate, marketed by Novartis as Gleevec.

Now Novartis is taking the Indian government to court, challenging this safeguard of India's law. If Novartis gets its way and the law is changed there is likely to be more patenting of medicines in India, which will in turn restrict the availability of affordable generic versions of essential drugs produced in India. And this would be detrimental for the millions of people worldwide who depend on them.

© 2006 Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)