The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : `New patent regime will push up drug prices'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 09, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

`New patent regime will push up drug prices'

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, JAN. 8. The medication for treating gastric ulcers, Ranitidine, now costs Rs. 7.16 for a strip of 10 tablets here, but soon it may cost 20 times as much. This may well be the implication of the Ordinance amending the Indian Patents Act issued on December 26 by the Union Government, according to Swadeshi Jagrana Manch, Karnataka.

"The Ranitidine preparation costs Rs. 740 (in rupee value) in the U.S. and Rs. 196 in Pakistan and this may well happen here. The process patent system has been replaced by the product patent system because the Government in Delhi has placed its international obligations under GATT above all national considerations," B.M. Kumaraswamy, convenor of the manch, told presspersons here on Friday.

There would have been pressure from multinational pharma companies to come out with the Ordinance which would also force many domestic companies to wait for decades before they could offer less expensive equivalents of the medicines which would go beyond the reach of even the relatively rich in India, he said.

Indian pharma companies were able to formulate a drug for treating AIDS, costing around $ 600 for a year's usage, and the South African Government was keen to procure it but the MNCs effectively prevented it, he claimed. In the U.S., the drug costs $ 15,000 for a year's treatment.

"Considering that we have 18 lakh children dying each year because of lack of medical treatment and 1.3 lakh pregnant women dying during delivery, we cannot make medicine beyond the reach of those who badly need them," Mr. Kumaraswamy said.

Protest

The manch had planned a protest movement to urge the Union Government to revoke the Ordinance, and protest meetings would be organised in Bangalore and across the State on January 11, he said.

The manch had sought the cooperation of doctors, the domestic pharma industry, and medical distributors and medical stores.

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