HEALTH: Novartis Lobbies European Parliament on Patents

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Mar 20 2007 (IPS) - The leading pharmaceuticals firm Novartis is seeking to prevent the EU’s political bodies from supporting an Indian law allowing access to cheap medicines in developing countries.

The Swiss firm has contacted all 785 members of the European Parliament over the past few weeks, urging them not to sign a written declaration opposing the Novartis stance on India’s 2005 patents law. Novartis is taking legal action against the law, which provides for patents on medicines to be refused on public health grounds.

The firm’s lobbying efforts appear to have paid dividends. Although left-wing and Green MEPs have strenuously criticised the company, the written declaration has had far less backing from deputies in the Parliament’s largest political grouping, the centre-right European People’s Party.

A written declaration becomes the assembly’s official position once a majority of MEPs have signed it. But with only 47 names secured since this declaration was opened for signature in February, it appears to be in jeopardy.

The Novartis legal challenge follows the decision by Indian authorities in January not to grant it a patent on its cancer treatment Glivec.

Meni Styliadou, head of European public affairs at Novartis said that the “case does not concern access to medicines”, but that it is contesting those aspects of the Indian patents system which “are currently not in compliance with international law.”

The humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) regards this assertion as bogus.

“Novartis is spreading confusion in the MEPs’ minds,” Alexandra Heumber, an access to medicines campaigner with MSF told IPS. “But the real issue is that Novartis does not consider public health to be a right. It has no sense of corporate responsibility.”

The Indian authorities turned down the Novartis application for Glivec on the grounds that it was a new form of a previously existing drug, rather than an innovation.

If the firm succeeds in having that decision overheard, anti-poverty campaigners fear this will have grave consequences for the supply of generic medicines to the poor. Over half the medicines used for treating AIDS in developing countries are manufactured in India.

The challenge is being heard in the High Court of Chennai, India’s fourth largest city, which is scheduled to finish its deliberations Mar. 26.

India did not require patents for medicines before the 2005 law, which was introduced to fulfill its obligations as a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The law differs from those applying in Europe and the United States, which can allow firms to gain new patents on modifications of existing treatments.

Yet while Novartis claims that the law violates WTO rules, its supporters say it is in the spirit of the organisation’s 2001 Doha declaration.

Agreed at a ministerial conference in the Qatari capital, this declaration stated that intellectual property rights should be interpreted in a way that supports the right to pubic health and promotes access to medicines for all.

Many campaigners have interpreted this as allowing countries to waive patents on drugs if they are needed to address an emergency, such as the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

Styliadou also said that “our legal case has no impact on pending patent applications for new HIV treatments.”

By contrast, MSF believes that the law is especially pertinent to AIDS.

Because AIDS patients can develop resistance to drug combinations that they take, there is frequently a need for them to switch to new medicines or updated versions of existing ones.

This has been illustrated by MSF’s main project in South Africa. In Khayelitsha township, near Cape Town, more than 17 percent of people being treated for AIDS have had to change their combinations in the past five years.

Newer drugs are generally only available from companies holding the patents for them. According to MSF, this means that they can be up to 50 times more expensive than older ones.

Indian manufacturers have already been unwilling to start producing generic versions of newer medicines, lest they would have to stop doing so if patents are granted on them in India.

Competition among generic manufacturers has helped bring the yearly cost of anti- retrivorals used for treating AIDS down from 10,000 dollars per patient in 2000 to 130 dollars in 2007. Yet companies holding patents can charge higher prices for their medicines as they have a monopoly on their production.

The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, has refused to call on Novartis to drop its case.

Peter Mandelson, European commissioner for trade, said that the Commission’s policy is not to intervene in court cases.

But anti-poverty campaigners say this position is unacceptable as the Commission has nominally pledged its support to the Doha declaration on access to medicines.

“By not taking a position, the Commission is in fact taking a position,” said Heumber. “Not saying they support the Indian government means they are supporting Novartis.”

MEPs critical of Novartis have signaled that they will maintain their pressure on the company.

“If Novartis is successful, a source of affordable life-saving drugs will dry up, condemning millions of the world’s poorest to premature, preventable deaths,” said Caroline Lucas, a deputy with the British Green Party. “Novartis simply has no business standing in the way of people’s right to access the medicines they need for survival.”

French Socialist Kader Arif said: “If Novartis wins the case, it is highly probable that many drugs will be patented in India and access to generic versions of drugs will be limited. This would be at the expense of millions of patients in the world whose lives depend on such drugs, in particular AIDS patients.”