There
is a battle going on around the world affecting the health and livelihoods of
millions of people.
At issue is the determination of the world's
largest pharmaceutical companies, based primarily in Europe and the U.S., to
prevent the spread of so-called "generic" medicines which are far
cheaper than their branded counterparts.
This issue is currently brought to light in
India's negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union. This
will give India cheaper access to European goods and markets, but will expose
it to IPR prosecution if it continues to place low-cost, locally produced
non-brand prescription drugs onto the world market.
India is often called the "pharmacy of
the developing world" as its companies ignore the patents of multinational
companies to produce cheaper copies for those could never afford brand-name
drugs.
China, too, has a highly active generic
medicine sector, and fulfils a similar need as the Chinese government works
hard to provide equal healthcare provision across the nation.
This is a highly emotive issue. HIV activists
in India (with 3 million current AIDS sufferers) claim the EU treaty
"threatens the lives of millions of people around the world who rely on
generic drugs for treatment."
In Africa, untold numbers of poor people have
died because of an inability to buy drugs that could have prolonged their
lives, if not necessarily curing their illness.
The Indian branch of the international medical
charity Medecins Sans Frontieres describes the proposed EU agreement as "a
disaster for the world's poorest people…not only [those] with HIV, but others
with cancer, diabetes and hypertension."
For the past few years, large drug companies
have been fighting at both the national and international level through such
tactics as filing law suits on patent violations, seeking to either block new
generic drugs or extract heavy compensatory payments for allowing their use -
and thus raising their cost. They have also sought to bring pressure by
intervening in the drug approval processes of individual countries.
In 2007, Neelie Kroes, then EU Competition
Commissioner, said the companies' practice of filing many patent applications
for the same drug and protracted litigation with generic producers had delayed
cheap products reaching patients and health services, and drastically pushed up
the cost of EU healthcare provision.
Big companies are also feeling political
pressure in the U.S., where President Barack Obama has campaigned against high
medicine costs undermining his pledge to extend healthcare coverage to millions
of uninsured Americans.
Companies deny they are against competition
and refute the notion that they are against developing drugs at a lower price,
but instead are hampered by complex regulatory hurdles and scientific challenges.
This translates into a long testing process that raises costs before any
medicine can reach end users.
Cynics remain unconvinced. One blogger
commented: "You mean drug companies don't have people's health as their
primary concern? They are driven by profit and don't care if people die as a
result of their actions? Shock, horror! You'll be telling us next that oil
companies care more about profits than clean energy to save the planet! This is
no surprise. Look at the Fortune 500 list of companies in America, the biggest
firms are in drugs and oil."
There are strong moral issues at stake here
because much of the campaigning against exorbitant prices and for promoting the
availability of cheaper generic drugs focuses on AIDS sufferers, where sexual
misconduct and drug use are often blamed for the spread of the disease - hence,
that the victims brought the suffering upon themselves. However, we also know
that there are many ways innocent people can pick up the virus.
However, as is now being made clear, there are
many diseases where high costs deny sufferers curative potential or at least
the alleviation of suffering.
There is a growing movement spreading across
Asia to bring this issue into the public spotlight. A recent statement issued
by a number of concerned groups within the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations - primarily from Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand - condemned
drug multinationals in the EU and U.S. for their "aggressive actions"
in the use of customs regulations, the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of
Intellectual Property obliging World Trade Organization (WTO) member countries
to grant patents on technological products including pharmaceuticals, and the
international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
Yet, the statement pointed out, in 2001 all
WTO countries signed the Doha Declaration that regulations should be
interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of countries' rights to
protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for
all.
Undoubtedly, businesses have a right to
protect their research investments; yet, the actions of these powerful
commercial entities risks eroding what has been achieved in recent years in
bringing down the costs of treatment of life-threatening diseases through generic
medicines.
Geoffrey Murray
China.org.cn
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