For Immediate Release: January 6, 2011
Contact: Matthew Kavanagh, +1 202 486 2488, matthew@healthgap.org
Asia Russell +1 267 475 2645, asia@healthgap.org
AIDS Activists and Experts:
U.S. Should Applaud India’s Decision to Reject Frivolous Patent on Key AIDS Drug; End “Schizophrenic” policies costing lives and wasting money
Washington, DC—Advocates this week applauded the decision by India to reject an attempt to patent a re-packaged version of a key AIDS medicine—paving the way for low cost generic versions to be produced and used around the world. They called on the Obama Administration to stop supporting big pharma’s attempts to “game” the patent system to keep AIDS drug prices high—costing lives of patients around the world and wasting U.S. taxpayer funding.
Abbott Laboratories, maker of the antiretroviral lopinavir/ritonavir, had sought a patent in India on a “heat stable” version of the medicine in an attempt to continue to control the market for the drug. But the Indian Patent Office found that the new formulation did not constitute a true invention.
In the United States, this drug is often the medicine of choice in treating HIV and is much needed in Africa as a “second line” treatment for those whose first combination of medications can no longer keep them healthy. But the patent in India could have stopped cheaper, generic versions of the drug from being produced and used in India, sub-Saharan Africa, and around the world. Recently, the Clinton Health Access Initiative negotiated a price of $440 per patient, per year for generic versions of this drug. With competition, the price is likely to fall significantly further.
“Abbott has gamed the patent system for nearly twenty years to extend the patent life on this drug. The time has come to say, ‘enough is enough,’ ” said Tahir Amin, Director of the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK), the not-for-profit organization that brought the legal action opposing the patent in India. I-MAK estimates that cost-savings generated over a three-year period by introducing generic lopinavir/ritonavir to 43 low- and middle-income countries would be sufficient to start 130,000 new patients on HIV treatment who currently lack access.
The U.S. State Department’s PEPFAR program is among the world’s largest purchasers of AIDS medicines, including lopinavir/ritonavir, and a study published in the Journal of American Medical Association last year showed that shifting to generics had already saved the program $323 million.
Yet last year, as President Obama traveled to India, U.S. diplomats were pushing India to expand its patent laws in ways that would prevent generic versions from coming to the market. U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Suresh Kumar confirmed to media in October that securing more restrictive intellectual property rights for U.S. companies was a key U.S. demand in behind the scenes negotiations.[i] Meanwhile, the U.S. Trade Representative’s “Special 301 Watch List” threatened India with trade sanctions for failing to award patents on trivial variations and combinations of existing medicines that do not show increase efficacy—such as in the case of lopinavir/ritonavir.
“President Obama’s administration should be applauding efforts to ensure that big-pharma doesn’t abuse global patent systems to keep drug prices high, wasting U.S. tax payer dollars, and costing lives,” said Asia Russell of Health GAP. “We hope the President will tell the trade and commerce side of his administration to stop undermining the life-saving work of the State Department programs like PEPFAR and side with people living with AIDS over big pharma.”
[i] Economic Times, “US Lobbying for Strong IPR Regime in India,” October 26 2010. |
