The Hindu Business Line : Drug affordability tops WHO panel's agenda

THE troika of "innovative developing countries" - India, Brazil and China are set to receive a delegation from the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Commission on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), innovation and public health.

Scheduled to have its first stop in India later this week, the Commission has on the top of its agenda the triple A of affordability, availability and accessibility to medicines, said Dr R.A. Mashelkar, Director-General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Vice-Chairman of the commission.

"The current model of drug development is unviable. If it takes 15 years and a cost of $1.2 billion to bring a new drug to market, one will have to look at alternate options in terms of technology, locations and pathways," he told Business Line.

Given the soaring cost of research, clinical developments and manufacture, this meeting would look at India's potential.

And in this context, the commission would meet with a cross-section of pharma industry associations, corporate representatives, IPR experts, policy specialists and non-Governmental organisation representatives.

This is the third meeting of the commission, after convening in Geneva and Washington earlier this year. The team would proceed from India to "critical countries" such as Brazil and China, he said.

Describing them, in a "Mashelkar-coinage" as "innovative developing countries", he said these countries are increasingly becoming important given the spiralling cost of medicines.

Responding to a query on whether issues such as the dropping of pre-qualified AIDS drugs from the WHO's list would feature at the meeting, he said that the commission would look at larger policy issues and not individual business and regulatory processes.

Indian drug majors Ranbaxy and Cipla had found some of their anti-AIDS drugs dropped from the WHO list.

Drug industry representatives, however, are expected to bring up the issue.

"We will make talk of bridging the gap between innovative and generic (chemically similar) drugs. As for anti-AIDS drugs, we will point out how global efforts had tried to discredit fixed doze combination drugs, for instance. If medicines have to remain affordable, countries will have to watch out that minor/trivial developments in a drug molecule do not get patented," said Mr D.G. Shah, Secretary General, Indian Pharmaceutical Association.

Other representatives slated to meet the commission include Mr Ranjit Shahani, President, Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India, Mr Yogin Mazumdar, President, Indian Drug Manufacturers Association, Mr Praveen Anand, patent attorney, Mr Anand Grover with an NGO and industry representatives such as Mr Ajay Piramal and Dr Swati Piramal of Nicholas Piramal India Ltd, Dr Y.K. Hamied of Cipla Ltd, Dr K. Anji Reddy of Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd and Dr Brian Tempest of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd.

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