This post should have appeared a month ago, but due to unforseen circumstances is being posted only today. Nevertheless, the impact of the topic of the post is going to be felt forever. On the 24th of March this year, the Government of India significantly amended the 1970 Patent Act that covered drugs and agricultural items, amongst others. While the impact of this on the Indian farmer is significant, the impact of the Law on the entire world community is huge. This Act, which until date permitted Indian drug manufacturers to make cheaper and more affordable variants of generic drugs for diseases like AIDS, was amended to ensure that the WTO guidelines were adhered to. As a part of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Indian drug manufacturers would no more be able to bypass the royalties for drug patents owned by American and European countries. A huge victory for the Pfizers and Bayers and a big setback for AIDS patients worldwide.
India, for those in the dark, provides more than 50% of the drugs used to treat the few million known AIDs patients in Africa and Asia. These generic drugs reduced the cost of a year's treatment for AIDS from $15000 a decade ago to almost $200 today. But with the global markets opening up and the pharma lobbies baying for the billions of dollars worth of lost business, this had to happen. With the new law in force, all future generics are required to adhere to global patent policies which means simply that the drugs are going to cost much much more. Agencies ranging from the World Health Organisation to HIV Kenya, have protested against this "Act against humanity". If imposed immediately, upto 25% or more patients will now be deprived of their AIDS medicine, simply because they cannot afford it anymore.
This brings me to the focal point of this post. Is'nt the main aim of medicine and open markets to save lives and enrich it for "all" concerned?. Why then are the people in third-world countries treated like s^&% just to make sure the coffers of some global behemoths are a few billions richer?. Even with the world becoming as money driven as it is, isnt there some worth for the human life?
Digression: Last weekend I saw "The Interpreter" which talks about genocide in Africa, which while fictional, echoes the very real daily horrors in Darfur. Would it have gotten more attention if it possessed any natural resources that the world needed, like oil, maybe?
10 comments:
LB: The questions you've raised are often those that I am grappling with. In an ideal world, yes human lives are more important than the billion dollar corporates, but hey!! Its an ugly 'real-world'.
I believe some statisticians had estimated an average American's life to be worth 600m USD. And of course the 'third-world' countries' citizens aren't worth much. This is capitalism at play... the more powerful (in terms of money, resources, intellect etc) can afford to step over the ones who are not and they will, in order to thrive. Perhaps its biological even - survival of the fittest, evolution, natural selection and all that crap for the human beings! But it's heart-wrenching and sad....
"Why then are the people in third-world countries treated like s^&% just to make sure the coffers of some global behemoths are a few billions richer?"
Ranga, looks like you have already made up your mind. My advice is, dont fall into the trap of assuming BIG is bad. Pfizers and Bayers spend lot of money on R&D to come up with vaccines and AIDS medicine. Is it wrong if they expect to make money out of it? Who should subsidize these R&D efforts? - pharma companies themselves or the US govt or UN? Should the researchers working in these organizations accept minimum wages instead of their 6-figure paychecks?? I don't have an answer but corporate bashing is not going to take us anywhere.
To put it heartlessly, it was a question of legal right and wrong. And the Government upheld the letter of law.
Humanely speaking though, the real question I guess is, shouldn't we be working to actually change those patent laws in the first place, to create exceptions for drugs like those for HIV/AIDS.
Ranj
I agree that the world is completely in the Darwinian mode. What I would like to see is some kind of sanity and care for fellow humans within that Darwinian mode.
Ramesh
I agree. The Indian Govt is not the one to be blamed. It was doing what it had to do to be competitive in the global marketplace. That said, yes, we need to think about redoing the concept of patents in such life-saving areas.
Manoj
I agree. Corporate bashing is a lost liberal cause that has no takers.And yes, companies that invest in R&D for making drugs need to be compensated. The key here is how much?
If a generic treatment costs one tenth of a FDA approval prescription, obviously somebody is greedy. I am not asking the drugs to be donated for free or subsidising it to the point where it becomes cost ineffective. Obviously the Indian manufacturers are making money selling at the price they are. Meaning that a concerted efforts by all the pharma companies to significantly bring down the price of AIDS/HIV drugs and still keep a good margin would be welcome.
Jagan
Given the money that is made in the HIV/AIDS medicine segment, R&D costs are made back in weeks. Thats how much the drugs are needed today. Its like Blockbuster putting out DVDs for rent. The first few weeks, BB is trying to recoup the investment on the DVD. Once it breaks even, its all profits and it doesnt hurt to reduce prices. But BB is really not a big deal because it doesnt affect lives. Pharma companies have a responsibility towards life and thats why I am complaining.
Higher R&D investment, hence higher pricing seems like an antiquated math. In much the same way as Microsoft tries (to come to terms with the Open Source war) it's upto the business architects, to come up with a robust model that will fetch ROI and yet don a do-gooder role. There's definitely a better approach, waiting to be explored.
Ranga, watch 'Hotel Rwanda' showcase the imbalance you mentioned.
this is a very delicate issue. as Manoj said, the companies that invested in R&D are losing. yeah they can recover that cost within days, but they weren't sure until it became a hit. they took that risk, the profits are for the risk only.
having said that, this whole patent thing looks like bull shit to me. its really impossible to track down all the inventions and discoveries and hence hand out patents. a classic example is the patenting of Basmati rice by a US firm. now come on, basmati rice is traditionally grown in the Indian sub-continent. but we never patented it. and its unfair to just dismiss our farmers by saying that they weren't careful in patenting their stuff.
what we need here is more time to adjust, and also excusing all the current stuff, atleast to market within India. I still think that Indian firms can market within India, totally disrepecting the law, coz pfizer can never compete ith our price :)
Pradeep
Good point. And to add to it, the development costs involved in creating medicines for AIDS/HIV are easily covered in the first few years of selling them, since it is so expensive and so much wanted. Once breakeven happens, a drop in prices only justifies the cause.
Hotel Rwanda in my queue. Interpreter inspired a portion of this post and I am waiting to see Hotel Rwanda.
Saranyan
I dont think risk justifies profits. It works on a personal or small scale level. Not when we are talking about a few million lives and few billion dollars, at least.
To argue about the concept of patenting and its applicability would require a whole new post. Sometimes patenting works, like in technology. Sometimes it doesnt, like in health sciences.
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