Costs of health--top priority

For our apex court, the needs of the average citizen are primary. The Swiss pharma company which tried to win patent protection for its cancer drug “Glivec” could not. So the cancer patients can afford to buy the drug. This drug was used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia and it costs Rupees 150000 while its generic equivalent costs only Rupees 9600. Now we are recommending less costly generic versions and thereby making essential drugs affordable for the average citizen. This is a big achievement for the people who have been a fighting a war against pharma industries to “evergreen” its patents to make big profits. The pharma lobby wants to make profits at the cost of the people and wants to call it minor changes in the original drugs as “innovations”; and it wants Patents Act to support its multimillion dollar domain. If allowed to make its own patent the rich pharma companies will not allow small companies from making much cheaper generic versions. But our Supreme Court recognises this; it wants to give people less costly drugs so that they can afford to buy it. It is with this view that the case of the Swiss company was seen, and the company’s plea for patent was rejected promptly.   

India is demonstrating that affordability of drugs is urgent for basic health for common people. We must keep in mind that health of the people is most important. We are able to resist 'lobbyism' tactics of multimillion pharma companies while framing our policies.