|
Mumbai:
Leading domestic pharmaceuticals companies like Ranbaxy
Laboratories, Dr Reddy''s, Nicholas Piramal, Wochkardt
and Zydus Cadila have decided to block the exclusive
marketing right (EMR) granted to the multinational drug
firm Novartis AG by the Indian Patent Office for its
anti-blood cancer drug Glivec (bulk drug name: Imatinib
Mesylate).
The
Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), which represents
India''s top 13 leading pharmaceutical companies like
Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy''s, Nicholas Piramal, Wochkardt,.Cadila
and Lupin (they are the strongest lobbying body of the
Indian pharmaceutical industry), has written to Dr S
N Maity, controller general of patents and designs,
Indian Patent Office, that the grant of EMR for Novartis
is a gross violation of Section 24(B) and Section 3
of the Indian Patent Act 1970, as the EMR will be granted
for what is not an invention.
IPA
secretary-general D G Shah says an application for the
patent of Imatinib Mesylate by other foreign drug companies
was filed in the US patent office on 28 April 1994 and
the Canadian patent for the same drug had been filed
in 1993.
It
is thus obvious that Novartis AG''s EMR application for
Glivec dated 27 March 2002 is for an article or substance
identical to the product covered by the Canadian and
the US applications, which were filed before 1 January
1995. As per the World Trade Organisation provisions,
the EMR can be allowed only for drugs invented after
1995.
"It
seems that the patent controller has overlooked the
facts and wrongly granted or agreed to grant the EMR
for Glivec. We, therefore, requested him to rectify
the errors and to take appropriate action by holding
or cancelling the EMR for the said product," says
Shah.
Indian
Drug Manufacturers'' Association president Yogin Majmudar
says this is a vital life saving drug for treatment
of blood cancer. The international price of the drug
is about $27,000 for a one-year course for one patient
and only a microscopic minority of the suffering patients
in India can afford it.
He
adds: "Its availability at fair prices and in adequate
quantities is a matter of life and death for many victims
of this deadly disease. Greatest care is, therefore,
to be taken for any such EMR grant. Some of the Indian
manufacturers have already developed their own processes
for this drug and have been marketing it at about one-tenth
of its international price."
|
