[Ip-health] AFP: AIDS, cancer activists step up pressure against Indian patents bill

[Mike Palmedo]

http://www.tdg.ch/tghome/tgnews.detailcateg.YWZwLmNvbToyMDA1MDMyMTowNTAzMjExMzAxMzEucmN5cnhobGo6MQ==.1.0.html

Global AIDS, cancer activists step up pressure against Indian patents bill

BOMBAY, March 21 (AFP)

Global health activists Monday stepped up pressure against a
controversial Indian patents bill that would bar firms from producing
cheap copies of brand name drugs, saying it threatened millions of
people living with HIV-AIDS and cancer around the world.

Groups representing those living with the diseases in Asia, Africa and
Latin America demanded that the Indian parliament drastically change the
bill.

"We are not against patents but we are against the Indian bill in its
present form which goes beyond what is required under TRIPS," said Anand
Grover, lawyer and convener of Affordable Medicines and Treatment
Campaign, a non-governmental organisation.

TRIPS is an agreement on intellectual property rights under the World
Trade Organisation. These rights are agreed upon by member countries of
the WTO.

Grover said under TRIPS, developing countries such as India did not have
to provide patent protection for new uses of known drugs, new dosages
and formulations or combinations of known drugs.

"TRIPS and many previous Indian committees have said that patents apply
to new molecules only. But our bill goes beyond this by increasing the
scope of patentability even to new dosages, combinations and
formulations of known drugs," Grover said.

He said the bill in its present form would bar Indian firms from
producing the "three-in-one" fixed dose combination of anti-retroviral
drugs widely used to treat those living with HIV-AIDS in the developing
world.

"Such wide patentability is clearly done to favour the multinational
companies," said Ellen T'hoen of the France-based Medecins Sans
Frontieres, one of the activists who attended a discussion on patents in
Bombay, India's western economic hub where many big pharmaceutical
companies are based.

Until now, Indian firms have been able to make cheaper versions of
patented drugs as India's patent laws protect the process of manufacture
rather than the medicines themselves.

By putting together the drug in a different way, pharmaceutical firms
have been able to produce generics of all well-known products.

Dozens of anti-cancer activists claimed drug prices would rise
substantially in the long term once product patents come into existence.

"The bill is a sure shot way to an early death to cancer patients making
drugs out of their reach. Only elite patients would be able to afford
these drugs," said Y.K. Sapru of Indian Cancer Patients Association.

Groups from Africa pleaded that the proposed law could adversely affect
treatment of millions of people living with HIV-AIDS.

"Today because of Indian companies I can treat four of my family members
suffering from AIDS. But the new law could make that difficult," said
Tendayi Kureya, representative of the Pan African Treatment Access
Movement, an umbrella group of more than 300 NGOs helping to make
cheaper drugs available in Africa.

He said treatment using drugs of Indian companies such as Ranbaxy and
Cipla cost 30 dollars per patient a month, "while patented products can
cost two to three times more."

"I watched my brother die a few years back because of no medicine... now
I do not want to see someone else die because drugs are costly," Kureya
told AFP.

Fifty percent of HIV-AIDS patients in developing countries taking
anti-retrovirals rely on India's form of "three-in-one" drugs.

African countries have been urging the Indian government to drop the
patents bill, introduced into parliament last Friday.

Indian officials defend the new law as necessary to comply with WTO
rules but claim HIV-AIDS patients will not suffer as Indian firms will
be able to continue to supply drugs to countries that do not have
manufacturing facilities of their own.

Africa is home to almost two-thirds of those living with HIV-AIDS around
the world, according to the United Nations, which reported that in 2004,
3.1 million Africans became infected while 2.3 million died of AIDS.