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MSF fears some provisions in India-EFTA trade talks will erode India’s ability to supply generic drugs across developing world
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Ramesh Shankar, Mumbai
June 02 , 2017
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Even as trade talks between India and the European Free Trade
Association (EFTA) countries of Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and
Liechtenstein resume in Liechtenstein, the international medical
humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has expressed
concern over some of the provisions in the Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
which will erode India’s ability to produce and supply generic medicines
for people across the developing world.
According to MSF, there
is tremendous pressure on India from Swiss negotiators and industry. The
leaked document on the Swiss demands covers local working of patents,
lowering the standards on patentability of biotechnology products
including biological drugs and data exclusivity.
Through this
deal, Swiss pharmaceutical corporations are working to erode India’s
ability to produce and supply generic medicines for people across the
developing world. The proposed provisions in the FTA would promote a
strategy that pharmaceutical corporations use to prolong their
monopolies, called ‘evergreening.’ The provisions proposed by Swiss
negotiators include ‘data exclusivity,’ a form of monopoly via the
regulatory system that prevents the marketing of generic formulations,
even when a medicine is not patented or no longer patented, the MSF
stated.
“India’s patent law puts people’s lives over
pharmaceutical corporations’ profits, and millions of people across the
developing world are alive today because of affordable generic medicines
made in India. Swiss pharmaceutical corporations have long been trying
to stamp out the competition from India, and now through the EFTA-India
trade deal have enlisted the Swiss government to their bidding. By
pushing for so-called ‘data exclusivity,’ pharmaceutical corporations
are trying to get a backdoor route to a monopoly, even when a drug
doesn’t merit a patent under India’s law.
We urge the Indian
negotiators to stand strong and reject any provisions that will be
harmful for people’s access to the medicines they need to stay alive and
healthy,” said Leena Menghaney, South Asia Head, MSF Access Campaign.
Pharmaceutical
corporations have long been seeking a more extensive granting of patent
protection on medicines than that offered by India’s pro-public-health
law. In 2006, Swiss pharmaceutical corporation Novartis took the Indian
government to court in a long-drawn out legal battle over its 2005
Patents Act (Novartis vs. Union of India – see below). In India’s
Patents Act, Section 3(d) discourages the granting of patents on new
forms of known medicines, effectively preventing evergreening. Abusive
evergreening practices and safeguards to prevent them were central to
this case, and to the future of India’s role as ‘pharmacy of the
developing world. ‘Novartis lost in India’s Supreme Court in 2013.
MSF
relies heavily on affordable generic medicines from India to do its
medical work around the world. Two thirds of the medicines MSF uses to
treat people with HIV, tuberculosis and malaria are generics made in
India. Fierce market competition among generic manufacturers in India
resulted in the price of HIV medicines coming down by nearly 99%, from
$10,000 per person per year in 2000 to around $150. Ten years later –
today, treatment is available for less than $100. This has allowed HIV
treatment to be dramatically scaled up, with more than 18 million people
receiving antiretroviral therapy today, the MSF further stated.
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