[Ip-health] Andrew Leonard in Salon: Pfizer's Philippine follies

[James Love]

http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2006/04/04/pfizer/index.html
Pfizer's Philippine follies
Andrew Leonard, April 4, 2006

On March 1, the huge pharmaceutical company Pfizer sued the
Philippine International Trading Corp., the Philippines FDA and two
Philippine government regulators for patent infringement. The reason,
says Consumer Project on Technology lawyer Judit Rius Sanjuan: The
officials were accused of "importing from India samples of a drug
that Pfizer sells in both the Philippines and India, and for
submitting the samples to the government drug regulatory agency."

According to Sanjuan, the patent for Pfizer's hypertension drug
Norvasc expires in 2007. The Philippine officials were engaging in a
practice known as the "early working" of a patent. They wanted to be
ready to sell a generic version of Norvasc manufactured in India the
moment the patent expired, so they were beginning the process of
registering the imported version. Such a practice is entirely legal
in the U.S. and many other countries, and, according to Sanjuan,
while not explicitly permitted in the Philippines' Intellectual
Property Code, has been standard practice for several years without
previously being challenged.

Why would the Philippines be so anxious to start importing the
generic version (a practice known as "parallel trade")? Maybe it's
because Pfizer charges $1.46 for a 10 mg dose of Norvasc in the
Philippines, but only $.18 in India. According to the Philippine
press, Pfizer has so far not explained why there is such a huge price
difference between the two countries, but it's not hard to guess why.
The availability of generic versions of Norvasc in India has likely
forced prices down there.

Meanwhile, on April 3, after two years, much wrangling and a dollop
of Big Pharma controversy, the World Health Organization's Commission
on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health finally
released its long-awaited 228-page report: "Public Health,
Innovation, and Intellectual Property Rights."

The reaction from various parties was as predictable as an outbreak
of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. Representatives of developed-nation
industry associations condemned it as overreaching and not properly
respectful of intellectual property rights. Activists concerned with
public health issues called it a missed opportunity: watered down,
insufficiently aggressive, and in the pocket of Big Pharma -- noting,
in passing, the embarrassing revelation that a draft version of the
report had been circulated with annotations inserted by an employee
of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers &
Associations.

I've only read the first and last chapters of the report, but I can
sympathize with the activists. The majority of the report's
recommendations sound a consistent, but not very inspiring, theme:
Governments should do more to support research and development of
medical science that would address the needs of poor people in
developing nations.

The basic problem is well known: There's no profit in developing
drugs to treat diseases that afflict poor people, so pharmaceutical
companies have no incentive to devote resources to their problems. At
the same time, Big Pharma demands that developing nations adopt
strict intellectual property laws, and works hard at blocking efforts
by developing-nation governments to provide cheap alternatives to
expensive drugs.

Case in point: Pfizer's lawsuit in the Philippines. It occurred to me
that one way to test whether the CIPIH's 50-odd recommendations had
any teeth was to see if any could be construed to apply to the
Norvasc brouhaha. Lo and behold:

     * "All companies should adopt transparent and consistent pricing
policies, and should work towards reducing prices on a more
consistent basis for low and lower middle income developing countries."
     * "Access to drugs cannot depend on the decisions of private
companies but is also a government responsibility."
     * "Developing countries should retain the possibilities to
benefit from differential pricing, and the ability to seek and
parallel import lower priced medicine."
     * "Countries should provide in national legislation for measures
to encourage generic entry on patent expiry, such as the 'early
working' exception, and more generally policies that support greater
competition between generics, whether branded or not, as an effective
way to enhance access by improving affordability.

So let's be clear: Even by the standards of a watered-down report
representing a consensus view of many different stakeholders but
heavily influenced by the interests of rich-nation intellectual
property rights holders, Pfizer's behavior in the Philippines is
abominable, unconscionable and deserving of withering worldwide scorn.

-- Andrew Leonard

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Introducing How the World Works

Salon staff writer Andrew Leonard is on special assignment to grapple
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too big for any one story or book. But there's a global conversation
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