Happy tidings for cancer patients
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: March 15, 2012 -
The announcement of government of India to allow Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma to manufacture and sell Nexavar, a drug for treatment of cancer, at a price over 30 times lower than charged by its patent-holder and German multinational Bayer Corporation under Section 84 of the Indian Patent Act has indeed come as a sweet music to the ears of many cancer patients across the country including Manipur, where cases of cancer is rising alarmingly.
Nexavar is a drug used in treatment of liver and kidney cancer and a pack of 120 tablets normally cost around Rs 2.84 lakhs in the market.
But the order issued by the Indian Patents Office on March 12 as a 'compulsory license' under the Indian Patent Act in compliance with the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) would make the same drug available to the patients at a price not exceeding Rs 8,880 for 120 tablets.
The move may have disappointed the German company, but the government of India has been compelled as the Bayer Corporation has done nothing precious to scale up the sale of the drug despite getting patent for it in India in 2008.
According to the order, the patentee (Bayer Corporation) did not import the drug at all in 2008 and imported in small quantities in 2009 and 2010.
Regardless of the resentment shown by the German company, compulsory licensing of the anti-cancer drug Nexavar has been hailed by health experts as 'perfectly legal move to balance corporate profit and public interest'.
To curb the mounting cost of the patented anti-cancer drug and make it available to the patients at affordable price in a poor country like India with a weak social health insurance infrastructure and where the cases of cancer are on the rise alarming is very much essential.
As per datas collected by the Population Based Cancer Registry, which is functioning under the National Cancer Registry Programme of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), there are 28 lakh cancer patients at any given point of time in India.
In case of Manipur, the annual report 2009-2010 of Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) has put the total number of cancer patients admitted to the Patient Care Services of the Radiotherapy Department at 1225 and the bed occupation rate at 75.3 percent.
In fact, this bold move on compulsory licensing should be a first step in the process of reform and price control over other patented drugs as well.
We should not forget that apart from the pain and suffering undergo by cancer patients and their family members, rising cost of treatment has been such a burden that many a cancer patient may willingly trade for HIV/AIDS.
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