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NEW DELHI: A drugs firm asked Indian officials for permission
Thursday to make cheaper generic copies of cancer drugs for export
to poor countries in a case watched closely by global pharmaceutical
giants.
Indian firm Natco Pharmaceuticals made the plea
for the country’s first so-called “compulsory license” to the
patent office as it bids to make generic copies of Pfizer’s Sutent
and Roche’s Tarceva cancer drugs.
“This is the first case in India. A compulsory
license will allow companies like ours to manufacture and export
drugs to least developing countries,” said M. Adinarayana,
secretary of Natco Pharmaceuticals, as the hearings began.
The global drugs patent system allows countries
to make cheaper generic copies of patented drugs in certain
situations, such as public health emergencies, under compulsory
licenses.
Experts said Natco’s request for permission to
make and export copies of Sutent and Tarceva to Nepal tested those
regulations, amid a wider debate about whether poor countries have
enough access to key but often expensive medicines.
Tarceva was granted a patent in India in 2007
following a new patent law passed in 2005, which brought the
world’s largest maker of generic drugs in line with World Trade
Organization guidelines on intellectual property.
The laxer rules before 2005 had encouraged
generic drugs manufacture in India, which campaigners had welcomed
as good for the poor.
Compulsory licenses have been granted since
2005, but so far none have been issued in India, making Hyderabad-based
Natco’s plea a potentially landmark case.
Canada allowed a generic copy of a patented AIDS
drugs to be exported to Rwanda in October. Thailand also issued
domestic compulsory licenses last year, but was criticized over
claims it was not responding to a public health emergency.
An Indian Patent Office official, who declined
to be named, said the hearing had started over the Roche case and
that the Pfizer case would be held Friday. He expected
representatives from Roche and Pfizer to attend.
Roche or Pfizer did not immediately respond to
emailed requests for comment.
Many Indian activists have complained that the
cost of patented drugs is too high and that provision should be made
to allow generic drugs to be supplied to the country’s legion of
poor.
-- AFP
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