Compulsory Licensing » infojustice

India Hears Appeal of Compulsory License for Cancer Drug Sorafenib

Posted by Mike Palmedo on January 22, 2013 No Responses »

Jan 222013

Image: Kaiser Permanente

India’s Intellectual Property Appellate Board is hearing Bayer’s appeal to the government’s compulsory license for patents on the drug Sorafenib (sold under the brand name Nexavar by Bayer). This medicine is used to treat kidney and liver cancer. The branded drug costs 2,800,000 rupees (USD 5,214) per patient per month and the generic costs 8,880 rupees (USD 165) per patient per month (USD prices based on today’s exchange rate). The compulsory license was issued under Section 84 of the Patents Act, on the grounds that the invention was “not available to the public at a reasonably affordable price,” and therefore not reasonably worked in India. Continue reading »

Compulsory License for Anti-Cancer Drugs – Update from Campaign for Affordable Trastuzumab

Posted by REPOST on January 14, 2013 No Responses »

Jan 142013

Press Release by the Campaign for Affordable Trastuzumab

CONTACT:

Kalyani Menon-Sen: +91 9910306382, kmenonsen[at] gmail.com
Leena Menghaney: +91 9811365412, leenamenghaney [at] gmail.com

The Campaign for Affordable Trastuzumab welcomes the news that the Government of India has started the process of issuing compulsory licences for the manufacture of biosimilars of three cancer drugs – Trastuzumab, Dasatinib and Ixabepilone. [See Govt moves to make three key cancer drugs cheaper, 12 Jan 13, New Delhi, Indian Express] Continue reading »

Access Victories and the Global Kaletra Campaign

Posted by Stephanie Rosenberg on November 21, 2012 No Responses »

Nov 212012

Photo: Public Citizen

[Reposted with permission from citizen.org] November 10, 2012 marked the first anniversary of the global Kaletra campaign, a campaign comprising health groups in 12 countries challenging pharmaceutical monopolies including Abbott Laboratories’ hold on HIV/AIDS treatment Kaletra and its components lopinavir and ritonavir. These groups have taken actions through compulsory license requests, patent oppositions, litigation and public campaigning to promote generic competition and lower costs. Several new significant victories have been achieved. For example, Indonesia issued licenses for seven medicines treating hepatitis B and HIV (including lopinavir+ritonavir). Ecuador issued a second compulsory license for an ARV treatment. A Colombian appellate court ruled that the Ministry of Health violated collective rights to health by failing to require Abbott to comply with the reference price for Kaletra (the Ministry has since imposed this requirement, reducing Kaletra prices by 70%) and must maintain Kaletra on a parallel imports list. Read below a summary of the actions in each country — and join us! Continue reading »

Indonesian Compulsory Licenses Show Values of Pro-Access TRIPS-Flexibility Terms in Voluntary Licenses

Posted by Brook Baker on October 30, 2012 No Responses »

Oct 302012

Brook Baker

It is a tremendous victory for people living with HIV in Indonesia that it has issued new compulsory licenses on seven anti-retroviral medicines, allowing the government to access generic versions of those medicines – domestically or by importation – at much cheaper prices. Indonesia now stands at the head of the pack of countries that have stood up to Big Pharma’s corporation power and to the trade and diplomatic pressure exerted by US and EU powers that consistently advance the IP monopoly rights of pharmaceutical multinationals. A little discussed aspect of the government’s compulsory license is that certain Indian generic producers will be able to supply Indonesia’s purchase of Gilead’s tenofovir + emtricitabiine and tenofovir + emtricitabine + efavirenz because of smart provisions in the Medicine Patent Pool’s voluntary license with Gilead. Continue reading »

Ugandan Center for Health Human Rights Publishes Guidelines for Changes to Industrial Property Bill

Posted by Mike Palmedo on October 21, 2012 No Responses »

Oct 212012

The Ugandan Center for Health Human Rights and Development has published a set of Model Provisions to Promote Access to Affordable Medicines in the country’s IP legislation that has been under debate for three years. The project was done with support from UNDP Uganda.

The booklet warns that the Industrial Property Bill 2009 “unnecessarily goes over and above the minimum required standards in protection inventions, trademarks, industrial designs and other forms of industrial property,” which will impact Ugandans’ access to medicines. It contains clause by clause “some of the adjustments that are needed in the bill in line with recommendations made by stakeholders at a consultative meeting held in March 2012. Continue reading »

Indonesia Licenses Patents for Seven HIV & Hepatitis B Medicines

Posted by Peter Maybarduk on October 11, 2012 1 Response »

Oct 112012

Precedent-Setting Government Order has Extraordinary Lifesaving Potential

On September 3, the government of Indonesia took a quiet but exceptionally important step to expand access to medicines and help save and improve lives of people living with HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B. President Dr. H. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed a decree authorizing government use of patents for seven HIV/AIDS and hepatitis medicines. If implemented to the full, the measure would introduce widespread generic competition and generate major cost savings in the world’s fourth most populous country. Continue reading »

Panelists at the XIX International AIDS Conference Discuss IPR and “The Future of Antiretroviral Treatment”

Posted by Mike Palmedo on July 27, 2012 2 Responses »

Jul 272012

This blog is a summary of a panel titled “The Future of Affordable Antiretroviral Treatment: Trends in Patents and Price” at the XIX International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC on July 25, 2012. The authors’ presentations are available on a page provided by the conference: http://pag.aids2012.org/session.aspx?s=228#4

The first speaker, Francisco Viegas Neves da Silva from the Brazilian Ministry of Health, presented “Compulsory License and Access to Medicines – Economic Savings of Efavirenz in Brazil.” The country’s compulsory license on efavirenz was issued in 2007, when there were 75,000 patients taking the medicine in the country. Prior to issuing the license, the government held more than 8 negotiations with the patent holder, and eventually was offered a reduced price of USD 1.11 per pill. However, Brazil rejected the offer, noting that the patent holder offered a price of USD 0.65 to Thailand. Continue reading »

USPTO Official Misleads Congress on Permissible Scope of Compulsory Licenses to Increase Access to Medicines

Posted by Brook Baker on June 28, 2012 1 Response »

Jun 282012

USPTO Deputy Director Teresa Stanek Rea

In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet on 27 June 2012 (Hearing: Protecting Patents, Trade Secrets, and Market Access), the Deputy Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, who also serves as Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, grossly misrepresented the scope of permissible compulsory licensing under the WTO TRIPS Agreement.

In her misleading testimony, Teresa Stanek Rea said: “We are consistent on our efforts … of trying to stop these compulsory licenses.” Rea said she was particularly disappointed in March, when India’s Patents Office ordered Bayer AG to grant an Indian generics maker (Natco) a compulsory license for the cancer drug Nexavar, ruling that it was too expensive for most people to afford. (Note: the generic was 3% the cost of overpriced Bayer product and reached only a tiny fraction of eligible cancer patients in India.) Continue reading »

UNDP, UNAIDS Briefing Paper Warns Against TRIPS-Plus Provisions in FTAs

Posted by Mike Palmedo on May 31, 2012 No Responses »

May 312012

The UN Development Programme and UNAIDS released a joint policy brief this week at workshop on the “Use of TRIPS Flexibilities and Access to Affordable ARVs in Asia.” The paper notes that the use of TRIPS flexibilities has expanded the number of people receiving antiretroviral therapy from 300,000 in 2002 to over 6.6 million in 2010. It warns that FTA provisions that broaden patentability, restrict patent oppositions, extend patent duration, require data exclusivity, require patent-registration linkage, and enhance IP enforcement all limit the use of these flexibilities. Therefore, these TRIPS-Plus provisions “may adversely impact medicine prices and consequently, access to treatment.” Continue reading »

Posted by Pranesh Prakash on May 25, 2012 No Responses »

May 252012

[Reposted from CIS-India.org] There are some welcome provisions in the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012, and some worrisome provisions. Pranesh Prakash examines five positive changes, four negative ones, and notes the several missed opportunities. The larger concern, though, is that many important issues have not been addressed by these amendments, and how copyright policy is made without evidence and often out of touch with contemporary realities of the digital era.

The Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012 has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, and will become law as soon as the President gives her assent and it is published in the Gazette of India. While we celebrate the passage of some progressive amendments to the Copyright Act, 1957 — including an excellent exception for persons with disabilities — we must keep in mind that there are some regressive amendments as well. In this blog post, I will try to highlight those provisions of the amendment that have not received much public attention (unlike the issue of lyricists’ and composers’ ‘right to royalty’). Continue reading »

Bayer Appeals Indian Compulsory License for Nexar

Posted by Brook Baker on May 6, 2012 No Responses »

May 062012

Just as Novartis appealed from an order denying its patent application on Glivec, Bayer has now appealed the granting of a compulsory license on Nexavar. Rather than honestly state that it likes selling its cancer medicines for $67,000 to only the richest patients in India, which means that only 200 or so patients get the medicine instead of the tens of thousands who need it, Bayer still makes a nifty profit of nearly $13 million dollars on those sales. If the price excludes the 99%, that’s fine with Bayer – that’s the logic of what it calls the international patent regime. Continue reading »

Colombian Court: Abbott Labs’ AIDS Drug Pricing Abuse Violated Health Rights

Posted by Peter Maybarduk on April 27, 2012 No Responses »

Apr 272012

Both sides appeal in ongoing civil society lawsuit for compulsory license

A Colombian administrative judge has ruled that Abbott Laboratories and the Ministry of Health threatened and violated collective rights to public health by maintaining the price of an HIV medicine above the reference price, flouting a government order. The court’s decision is a groundbreaking condemnation of Big Pharma pricing abuses and a precedent for health rights in Colombia.

The decision arises from a lawsuit filed by health groups seeking a compulsory license on lopinavir + ritonavir (LPV/r), marketed by Abbott as Kaletra and Aluvia. A compulsory license would introduce cost-cutting generic competition with Abbott’s patent-based monopoly. Continue reading »

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