The US government may take the advisory
of the Chamber seriously considering its tremendous influence on the US
government and it will have to act accordingly against India. The
charge against India is that it consistently denied adequate and
effective protection for intellectual property rights to international
pharmaceutical companies operating in India.
Global pharmaceutical firms have been putting pressure on the US government for some years to act against India for producing and exporting several cheap generic drugs to the US and many other markets. The provocation for the US Chamber now to take such an unfair stand against India is the set of decisions relating to pharmaceutical patents by the Indian judicial system and patent authorities since last two years. In 2012, India issued its first ever compulsory license to domestic drug company, Natco Pharma Ltd, for a kidney and liver cancer drug, Nexavar, patented by Germany's Bayer AG.
The move was strongly
objected by the German multinational. In 2013, the Supreme Court
rejected the patent claim of Novartis for Glivec, an anti cancer drug,
after a seven year old legal battle with Indian authorities. The apex
court was only right in upholding the Section 3(d) of the amended
Indian Patent Act which prohibits evergreening of a drug patent by the
inventor company by making some incremental changes to the original
molecule.
Making medicines cheaper is a politically sensitive issue in India as many patented drugs are too expensive and unaffordable for most people. Yet, Indian government has not brought the patented drugs under any price control and the percentage of patented drugs marketed in the country is steadily on the rise especially after the amended Patent Act came into effect in 2005. MNCs obtained several hundreds of patents for drugs since then from the Indian patent offices although many of them are not for new molecules.
The US government should note that any obstructive action in this regard can have a very adverse impact on the trade relations between the two countries. India needs to strongly resist if the US government resorts to any such inappropriate action and support Indian pharma. Indian pharmaceutical companies also have an international obligation of making available generic drugs to poor patients in the US and several other countries.
Global pharmaceutical firms have been putting pressure on the US government for some years to act against India for producing and exporting several cheap generic drugs to the US and many other markets. The provocation for the US Chamber now to take such an unfair stand against India is the set of decisions relating to pharmaceutical patents by the Indian judicial system and patent authorities since last two years. In 2012, India issued its first ever compulsory license to domestic drug company, Natco Pharma Ltd, for a kidney and liver cancer drug, Nexavar, patented by Germany's Bayer AG.
Making medicines cheaper is a politically sensitive issue in India as many patented drugs are too expensive and unaffordable for most people. Yet, Indian government has not brought the patented drugs under any price control and the percentage of patented drugs marketed in the country is steadily on the rise especially after the amended Patent Act came into effect in 2005. MNCs obtained several hundreds of patents for drugs since then from the Indian patent offices although many of them are not for new molecules.
The US government should note that any obstructive action in this regard can have a very adverse impact on the trade relations between the two countries. India needs to strongly resist if the US government resorts to any such inappropriate action and support Indian pharma. Indian pharmaceutical companies also have an international obligation of making available generic drugs to poor patients in the US and several other countries.
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