The Hindu Business Line : Domestic drug cos: Losing the price advantage

CANCER drugs are unaffordable and product patents will make it more so, fears 62-year-old Mr Y.K. Sapru, founder-chairman of Cancer Patients Aids Association.

"When it comes to cancer, there is a story every day. Even affluent patients come for help with free cancer drugs. In one case, a student from a technology institute signed up for clinical trials of a cancer drug (to get the medicine), because his family could not afford it. A patented cancer drug, for example, costs about Rs 1.20 lakh per month. But its generic (chemically-similar) version is Rs 10,000. Should the right to live become inferior to the right to intellectual property?" asks the founder of the 35-year old organisation.

Mr Sapru understands the dynamics of drug pricing - he has been Executive Director with a multinational drug company.

Cancer is one segment where the product patent regime rings concern. But Dr Rama Mukherjee, President (Research and Development) with Dabur Pharma, observes: "Drugs will not go out of the market, however, there could be an increase in prices. Specially with newer drugs." Dabur Pharma is strong in the cancer segment.

Dr Mukherjee stresses the need for a dynamic health insurance scheme or a subsidy for people who need critical drugs.

Meanwhile, the domestic drug industry spills over with diverse views on the subject. "Chronic segments like cardiology, anti-diabetes could see a many-fold increase in price, due to product patents," cautions Mr D.G. Shah with the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance.

A drug company representative adds that the precise impact on drugs can be plotted when the Government clears the air on what is patentable.

A patent grants the innovator company guaranteed sales for 20 years. And companies seek to extend this period by tweaking an existing drug molecule, by merely changing it from a solid to crystalline form, for instance. The process is called ever-greening, but will such a product be patentable?

Medicines across the board - antibiotics, antifungals, hypertension and anti-psychotic will be affected, says another industry representative. However, there will not be a shortage. More than 90 per cent of drugs in the market are those patented before 1995 and hence are not under the patent regime, he says. But there will indeed be a re-alignment in prices, says Dr Gopakumar Nair, an industry expert on patents.

An industry analyst feels that large Indian companies making copies of original drugs may take a dent of about Rs 10 crore. It will be the smaller companies that will have to struggle, he says.

Differential pricing will come to the rescue, says another drug company representative, since both patients and doctors in India are price-sensitive.

"It is not that medicine prices will go up from January. As more drugs come under patent, India will lose its advantage of placing new drugs in the market at one-tenth the cost. And this will affect consumers locally and worldwide," observes Dr Amit Sengupta with the Delhi Science Forum.