USIBC takes initiative to ensure that Indian patients have access to latest treatments

Aug 27 2009

India Business Council supported ‘Coalition for Healthy India’ released the findings of its report on “The Value of Incremental Pharmaceutical Innovation: Benefits for Indian Patients and Indian Business”. The report highlights and substantiates the impact of restrictive policies in India, with respect to medical and pharmaceutical innovation. The report adds a patient-centric perspective to the public discourse on IPR and drug patents and points out the positive impact that incremental innovation can have on patient care in India.

Coalition for Healthy India is a USIBC initiative, aimed at ensuring that Indian patients have access to the latest and most effective treatments and cures. CHI brings together like-minded members of the U.S. and Indian business communities, non-governmental organizations, patient advocacy organizations and health professionals to coordinate and support improved access to quality healthcare in India.

According to Greg Kalbaugh, Director and Counsel at the USIBC, “It is unfortunate that the voice of the patient seems to have been lost in the debate on intellectual property and drug patents. Incremental pharmaceutical innovation has very real benefits for Indian patients, since it leads to the development of life-saving drugs as well as drugs that markedly improve quality of life for Indian patients. By no means are these innovations 'minor.'” He continued with a vivid example: “Heat stable versions of anti-retroviral drugs may not be critically important to people in large cities where there’s easy access to electricity and refrigeration, but they’re surely important to people in rural areas. Citizens in rural areas deserve to know that when they take a drug, it’s going to work whether they have access to refrigeration or not. Unfortunately, section 3(d) of India’s patent law actively discourages just that sort of life-saving innovation. For the sake of patients, it needs to change. And it needs to change for the sake of their employers, all of whom count on having healthy employees.”

In recent years, incremental pharmaceutical innovations have accounted for as much as 65% of new drug approvals by regulatory agencies. Over 60% of the drugs on the World Health Organization’ list of essential medicines reflect incremental improvements of older drugs.

“The conclusion is clear: by preventing many valuable pharmaceutical innovations from receiving patent protection, Section 3(d) of India’s Patents Act inhibits the development of safer, more efficacious and more useful drugs for Indian patients,” stated the author of the report, Raj Gandesha, a senior lawyer with the global law firm of White & Case LLP. Mr. Gandesha continued “It is critically important that we actively encourage the discovery of new forms and uses of existing chemical compounds or substances. These efforts in-turn will lead to the development of safer, more efficacious and more useful drugs that are better-suited to particular patient profiles or needs and ultimately result in improved patient compliance and greater overall well-being.”

Addressing concerns about so-called “ever-greening”, Mr. Kalbaugh pointed out that Ever-greening is a made-up controversy. “A patent on an incremental pharmaceutical innovation does not bar a generic company from selling a generic version of the original drug product once the patent covering that product has expired. In fact, generic competition can constrain the price of products based on later incremental innovations. Moreover, incremental pharmaceutical innovations themselves can increase price competition, by increasing the number of different drugs that exist within a given class.”

The speakers noted that the report is intended to add a patient-centric perspective to the public discourse, which till now has been largely dominated by more powerful economic constituents. Several participants pointed out that the Mashelkar Committee report, recently accepted by India’s government, bolsters the message that Section 3(d) is in need of reform.

Coalition for Healthy India brings together like-minded members of the U.S. and Indian business communities, non-governmental organizations, patient advocacy organizations and health professionals dedicated to ensuring that Indian patients have access to the latest and most effective treatments and cures.