Geneva, 23 feb (EFE).-A group of NGOs, including Médecins sans Frontières and Oxfam International, today called for the shareholders of the pharmaceutical Novartis which put an end to the judicial process in India and which aims to put an end to a safeguard that, in practice, allows to produce generic drugs.
Specifically, Novartis wants to patent in India the Glivec, a drug that stops the development of a rare type of leukemia, attempt to date has been denied three times by the Justice of the subcontinent.
The Swiss pharmaceutical appealed to the Indian Supreme Court and is expected that the judgment is known mid-March.
Indian patent law, which was amended in 2005 in compliance with the rules of the World Trade Organization, established by the interests of public health the uprise of a patent, which is granted only to those drugs that prove to be a significant innovation.
Las NGOs consider that the ultimate goal of Novartis is not patenting the Glivec, but weaken the safeguard clause which in practice allows to produce generic drugs.
“Novartis acts as a Trojan horse to attack the Indian Law safeguard clause, to be able to patent in the future changes of any type of existing medicines.” “His victory in justice will benefit of all multinational drug companies at the expense of millions of patients worldwide,” warns NGOs release.
“In developing countries, millions of people have generics to gain access to affordable medicines.” Shareholders of Novartis should question the attempt of the company break this system. “Urge investors to ask to the direction of Novartis to abandon the process”, adds.
Generic medicines produced in India represent 80 percent of the medicines used by Médecins sans Frontières to treat 170,000 people in 19 countries. EFE
