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Supreme Court notice on price of cancer drug

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 6. The Supreme Court today issued notices to the Centre, the Drug Controller of India, the Controller General of Patents and the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority on a petition alleging that the price of Gleevec, a drug for the treatment of cancer would go beyond the reach of patients in view of the grant of exclusive marketing rights (EMR) to the Swiss pharmaceutical company, Novartis AG.

A Bench comprising Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice D.M. Dharmadhikari also issued a notice returnable in four weeks to Novartis AG and its Indian concern, Novartis India Limited, on the petition filed by the Cancer Patients Aid Association.

The petitioner challenged the grant of EMR to Novartis for Gleevec, containing a crystalline form of a compound, Imatinib Meyslate, used for treating patients suffering from Chronic Myeloid Leukomia (CML) — a life-threatening form of cancer. With the grant of EMR to Novartis, the price of the drug would go up from Rs. 4,000 to Rs. 1,20,000.

It said that 24,000 patients who suffered from CML every year in India would die, as the drug would become unaffordable. Since Gleevec was a life-saving drug for CML patients, in the interest of the public, the Centre should fix a price that patients could afford.

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