In the month of January 2009, India’s premier drug manufacturer, ‘Dr.Reddy’s Laboratories’, exported a consignment of bulk drugs to Brazil. This consignment was seized and impounded in transit by Dutch customs, on charges of patent infringement. The consignment, worth about US$500,000, contained the drug ‘Losartan’, which is used mainly to treat high blood pressure. This was a perfectly legal trade transaction, between India and Brazil. There was no patent infringement of any kind or any other violation of any international law or laws of both Brazil and India. In Holland, patent for this drug, is held by ‘DuPont’ under brand name ‘Cozaar’. However, the consignment was not meant for Holland and had not even reached Holland. It was seized in transit to Latin America. This Dutch act therefore just amounted to international Piracy if nothing else.
Consignments sent by few more Indian drug manufacturers such as, JB Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Medico Remedies Pvt. Ltd, Titan Pharma India Pvt. Ltd, and Mission Pharmaceuticals Ltd, all based in Mumbai, and Hyderabad-based Sainor Pharma Pvt. Ltd. also ran into similar trouble. Their consignments, no way sub-standard and absolutely genuine and legal were also seized on various EU ports.
All these and many other manufacturers in India, produce Generic Medicines in huge quantities. Generic medicines are equivalent to branded medicines in all respects, but have no patent protection. Just like branded medicines, they are manufactured under tightly controlled environment, use best quality raw materials and undergo stringent tests. Generic medicines essentially are cheap and are therefore very popular in almost all the developing world.
When a company develops a new drug, it has to bear astronomical costs towards development and user trials. To prevent duplication of their work, international patent acts provide protection to the original manufacturer for certain number of years. The idea behind this protection is that the original manufacturer should be able to recover his development and trial costs during these years. Multinational drug companies, who are major developers of new medicines, not only recover their costs by this protection but also make huge profits as during these protection years, they can really charge a price they wish, since there is no competition. Once this patent protection is over, other manufacturers bring out Generic medicines, equivalent to original branded medicine. These are naturally very cheap as development costs are low and the market for that medicine is already established. This benefits the consumer to a large extent. The original manufacturer however, can no longer make the huge profits as the market becomes very competitive. Multinational drug companies therefore hate these Generic medicines as these cut into their huge profits.
Indian manufacturers are producing Generic medicines in such huge quantities that it has become universal goal of all multinational drug companies, to try and kill this industry or at least stop their exports to other countries, by any means they have. However, the consumer response to these Generic drugs from international community is so huge that these multinational companies find themselves at a loss. Even countries like USA do allow Generic drugs to be sold after strict inspections and trials. The benefit of this naturally goes to Indian producers and American consumers, who get medicines at a reasonably low cost.
OXFAM organization has now reported that a group of rich developed nations, that include European Union, United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zeeland, would be holding a meeting in Morocco in next few days under a very deceptive name of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Only two developing nations, no way connected in this issue, Morocco and Mexico, have been invited to this meeting. The meeting proposes to look into rules regarding international patent protection and trademark protection. In real terms this means that the countries attending this meeting, shall be given a right, to seize and confiscate Generic Medicines manufactured by India. Such of their acts, would become legal under international law. Surprisingly, their actions are proposed to be binding on countries, which would not even attend this meeting. These countries can also criminalize and prosecute Indian Generic drug manufacturers. Obviously, India and China have not been even invited to attend this meeting. The meeting is being held in such hush hush manner that even draft resolutions have not been released.
The plot is very clear. Kill Indian Exports of Generic medicines to poor and developing nations. Judge Indian Generic medicines manufacturers, to be criminals. The world would have no choice but to buy heavily priced medicines from Multinationals.
After all, what is the value of life for the poor and sick people from developing world? It is more important that the multinationals keep making their huge profits.
21 July 2009
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