Novartis patent case a threat to developing nations: Medecins Sans Frontieres

30 January 2007

The treatment of thousands of AIDS patients will be in jeopardy if Swiss drug maker Novartis succeeds in changing India''s patent law, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has warned.

Medecins Sans Frontieres, which translates to "doctors without borders", is a global humanitarian medical aid agency that has been actively campaigning for substituting the prohibitively expensive patented drugs from multinationals with low cost generic drugs as an effective treatment for HIV / Aids.

In the past few years, several Indian pharmaceuticals manufacturers have developed low-cost generic anti-retrovirals, currently being used effectively in African and other low-income countries under WHO programmes.

For instance, antiretroviral (ARV) treatment costs in 2004 were an estimated $10,000 per patient annually. But with the availability of generic drugs produced mainly in India, the cost came down to about $70 per patient per year.

Global multinationals have long regarded this as a threat to their sales and have even questioned the efficacy and quality of low-cost Indian medicines.

With the WHO having satisfied itself on the quality and efficacy of Indian anti retrovirals, they have begun being regarded medicines of choice by medical aid agencies involved in managing HIV / Aids patients