The Hindu Business Line : CPI (M) urges Govt to fight Novartis patent challenge

Critics, including Medicins Sans Frontieres, Oxfam, Network of Positive People and others, are worried that millions of patients across the world would be deprived of cheaper generic drugs if Novartis's legal challenge were to be successful.

In a statement, the CPI (M) warned that the case could be a precursor to similar patent challenges whenever the Indian Patent Office rejects an application. "If the Gleevec patent were accepted, it would cost (an AIDS patient) Rs 1.2 lakh for a month's medicine against indigenous cost of only Rs 8,000."

The party also said that a number of second-line AIDS drugs were also known before 1995 and, therefore, cannot be granted patents in India.

Novartis has challenged Section 3 (d) provision of the Indian Patents Act, which denies patent grants to modified molecules, after its patent application for a modified version of the anti-cancer drug, Gleevec, was rejected in January 2006.

Novartis claims that the same patent had been approved in 40 other countries.

The next hearing comes up on February 15.

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