A few follow on articles in todays news on the theme of patenting and drug prices.
Joe Matthew reports in the Business Standard today that 358 of 413 drug patent applications for cancer in India are from top multinationals like Novartis, Aventis, Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, Boehringer, Roche and Abbot.
The rush for patents on cancer medicine can be explained by the potential of the Rs 1,200 crore Indian market.
With nearly 2.5 million patients, cancer is one of the ten leading causes of death in India. Data sources from the National Cancer Registry Programme show that over 700,000 new cases and 300,000 deaths occur annually due to cancer.
However, not all 413 applications will pass muster with the patent office, a patent expert warned. India does not give patents on drugs patented elsewhere before 1995.
The other article, also from the Business Standard titled “Patent Crusader” is a company profile of Cipla.
in 2000, his son stunned the pharmaceutical world by offering to sell anti-retroviral drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS at a fraction of existing prices. In an event that gained huge publicity at that time, he told a European Commission meeting that he could sell a three-drug anti-retroviral combination for around $800 per patient, while multinational pharmaceutical companies were selling it for over $12,000. The next year, he brought his price further down to $300 and finally to $140. This opened the floodgates for Indian drug makers. Soon, countries facing the HIV/AIDS epidemic started placing large orders with them. The Erlontinib case was the next logical step. In 2005, India switched to a regime of product patents. Companies could no longer produce clones of patented medicine. Knowing very well that Roche had got the patent for Tarceva in July 2007, Cipla went ahead and launched Erlontinib in January this year. The Delhi High Court has opened the debate one more time for life-saving drugs — should patients be deprived of cheap medicine if it is patented? Cipla has also challenged the Roche patent on Tarceva, arguing that the original invention data does not justify the patent claims. It has said that the “invention claimed is obvious and does not involve any inventive step and cannot be patented in India.” This was not the only incident when Hamied showed that he has a mind of his own. In the last decade or so, most large Indian pharmaceutical companies have expanded overseas, especially in the US, which accounts for about half of the world market. But Cipla kept its focus steady on India and developing countries. Though the company was called conservative by many, it reaped the benefits when the US market for generic drugs, the forte of Indian companies, crashed a couple of years ago. Soon, it had become India’s most valuable pharmaceutical company.
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