Petition against Novartis

[roland freq]

Hi,
Could anyone who reads this please sign this petition. http://www.msf.org/ the Swiss company Novartis is trying to ban Indian firms from making generic versions of their drugs. The non-branded medicines made by companies in places like India cost a fraction of the price of branded medicines made by Novartis. If Novartis wins their court case, millions around the world will be left without vital medicines they need to control HIV and AIDS as well as other life threatning diseases.

Anyone in doubt about just how life changing these drugs are to sufferers should read this guys story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/p ... html/1.stm

Thanks

[obiwan]

Yeah this kind of thing is fucked greedy bastards putting money before lives again and again. Disgrace

[spaceboy]

Yeah I'm on this.

Know Cipla very well: the CEO is one legendary guy!!! Singlehandely fought to bring Aids drugs prices down by getting his company to create cheaper drugs...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipla

[sek [espionage]]

ohh tough call.. I worked in pharma for a while can say with honesty that Novartis, is probably one of the more respectable companies.
A large majority of their R&D is used to create treatments for VERY serious disease. Some of which take literally a decade to research and test (costing billions of dollars).
I can see why they're protective of their property. At the same time, squaring billions in R&D dollars is primarily responsible for high drug costs. Indian companies (manufactures) are really doing nothing more than a few months work reverse engineering (costing little) then manufacturing offshore (costing next to nothing).. thus producing the same drug for little money.
Will it help people?? Absolutly.
Is it right?? Err I'm not so sure..

I do know that there are much more fucked up greedy pharma companies out there than Novartis though..



*cough* pfizer *cough* roche *cough*

[metalboxproducts]

ohh tough call.. I worked in pharma for a while can say with honesty that Novartis, is probably one of the more respectable companies.
A large majority of their R&D is used to create treatments for VERY serious disease. Some of which take literally a decade to research and test (costing billions of dollars).
I can see why they're protective of their property. At the same time, squaring billions in R&D dollars is primarily responsible for high drug costs. Indian companies (manufactures) are really doing nothing more than a few months work reverse engineering (costing little) then manufacturing offshore (costing next to nothing).. thus producing the same drug for little money.
Will it help people?? Absolutly.
Is it right?? Err I'm not so sure..

I do know that there are much more fucked up greedy pharma companies out there than Novartis though..



*cough* pfizer *cough* roche *cough*

I can see where your coming from with that and it makes sense.

However. The other side would have to be the company's doing the r&d should be sudsidised by western governments so no one looses money and it's paid for by the taxes of the counrty's involved. Rather than sending billions in aid, both economic and millitary to country's. Speaking of the arms trade. How much of the tax payers money is pumped into that? More than the R&D costs of pharma company's for sure.

[shonky]

So by reverse engineering the product they can reduce the costs by £10,000 p/a to £130.

Understand your point about the R&D, but seeing as AIDS seems to be here for the duration and thousands of people are dying daily from it, I think you have to weigh up the dollar vs humanity deal.

Petition signed

[metalboxproducts]

Signed

[metalboxproducts]

Yeah I'm on this.

Know Cipla very well: the CEO is one legendary guy!!! Singlehandely fought to bring Aids drugs prices down by getting his company to create cheaper drugs...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipla

What? Does he only have one arm?

[paolo]

Done - big up msf! I certainly hope this makes a difference.

[sek [espionage]]

So by reverse engineering the product they can reduce the costs by £10,000 p/a to £130.

Understand your point about the R&D, but seeing as AIDS seems to be here for the duration and thousands of people are dying daily from it, I think you have to weigh up the dollar vs humanity deal.

Petition signed

I understand the humanitarian factor fully. A family member of mine takes a daily medication for a life threatening disease. If we could get it cheaper that would be fantastic. Truth is that we pay a fraction of the cost it sells in the US for (Canadian Health Care works.. sometimes).
The fact that these drugs in question are meant to be used for war torn or countries with a fragile financial infrastructure changes things in favor of offshore generic production. However once you open the gates to allow for patent infringement it IS a slippery slope and a fight to preserve patent rights (no matter how inhumane they may appear) is necessary to create an equal balance.
I'm not saying cheaper drugs should not be available to those in need. They absolutely should. But to vilify a company that put years of research into actually creating the drug in the first place is a bit unfair in my eyes.

Truth is, if there weren't drug giants pouring billions into R&D to create these drugs, there would be nothing for generics to reverse engineer. If drug giants are forced to comply to popular demand.. there would likely less cures to said illness.

A bit of a chicken vs egg situation here.. it's a shame it's at the expense of human lives.

[dust shop]

"When Channel 4 in the UK aired the investigative film "Dying for Drugs, Novartis filed a complaint to intimidate others from showing the film. Novartis objected to the film noting the company's investment in a Leukemia drug (Gleevec/Glivec) was relative inexpensive to develop, given the significant donor and government contributions to early research, and the small size of the relatively short clinical trials. Novartis charges about $130 per day for this drug in developing countries.

Indian generic manufacturers were able to produce copies of Gleevec for a small fraction of the Novartis price, for sale in developing countries where there was no patent, or where a government issued a compulsory license. Novartis then obtained a legal prohibition against this, under a complicated WTO provision. When questioned about this at a 2004 World Bank meeting that I attended, Novartis officials told the audience that Novartis wanted to protect it's intellectual property in India, and that with strong patent protection they considered India a potential market of 50 million customers -- telling everyone that they wanted to market their products prices that 95 percent of the population could not afford. (For more on Gleevec disputes, go here).

When Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella took over as chairman of the global trade lobby group the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations (IFPMA), he called for a doubling of their lobbying staff.

Now Novartis is suing the government of India, asking to eliminate automatic compulsory licenses on older medicines now covered by the new India patent act, and seeking to broaden considerably the grounds for granting patents, including for new uses for older drugs. This in a country where the average per capita income was less than $2 per day in 2005. "

from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-lov ... 39883.html

more

"
South Asia

India's clinical trials and tribulations
By Indrajit Basu

KOLKATA - The potential is huge, multinationals are willing and Indian companies are eager. Moreover, it is a type of outsourcing that is not likely to draw the protests of the anti-outsourcing brigade in rich economies. Yet even as India increasingly emerges as a preferred destination for outsourcing clinical trials - testing of new drugs on humans - the country may also be heading toward providing the greatest source of human guinea pigs for the global drug industry.

A spate of unfortunate events over the past few years has brought to the fore the rampant practice of conducting unethical and even illegal clinical trials in India, which is fueling immense concerns culminating into a huge public outcry over the regulatory authorities' failure to check such practices, and even lawsuits.

For instance, in early March, the Supreme Court of India hauled up two top biotech companies in India, the Hyderabad-based Shanta Biotech and Bangalore-based Biocon India, for "openly conducting illegal clinical trials of new drugs on unsuspecting patients" after a litigation filed by the Aadar Destitute and Old People's Home, a Delhi-based social organization. This non-governmental organization (NGO) alleged that the two companies had conducted improper clinical trials of Streptokinnese - a new clot-busting drug used in heart attacks - last November without requisite permissions (of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee), as a consequence of which eight people lost their lives.

Although the Streptokinnese case was a shocking revelation, it wasn't an isolated one. According to Monthly Index of Medical Specialities in India, an independent pharmaceuticals journal, more than 400 women who had been trying in vain to conceive were enrolled in 2003 without their knowledge or consent to take part in clinical trials across India to see if a drug called Letrozole induced ovulation. Letrozole used in India was copied (with permission) by Sun Pharmaceuticals, a large Indian generic drug company, from a patented product of the same name of Novartis, which the multinational drug maker introduced globally for solely treating breast cancer and not for any other use in any country, including India. A complaint on the Letrozole case, too, was filed in the Supreme Court by yet another Delhi-based NGO.

And in 2001, another trial that made headlines involved the clinical trial of nordihydroguairetic acid, a chemical with anti-cancer properties that was tested by a regional cancer-treatment center (RCC) in the Indian state of Kerala for a US-based researcher then associated with Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States. The drug was allegedly tried on 26 unsuspecting cancer patients, two of whom died. Subsequently, a 60-year-old woman was again included for a trial for which the RCC provided five doses of the experimental drug, worth Rs10,000 (about US$200), free. The woman's condition turned critical as well before the fifth dose, although she escaped death.

These instances indicate that in the absence of adequate regulations and proper laws, a developing country eager to cash in on the opportunities of globalization can be used for indulging in rash and risky practices. A recent survey of 200 health researchers globally that was commissioned by the former US National Bioethics Advisory Commission and published in February's edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics revealed that a quarter of clinical trials conducted in developing countries did not undergo ethical review.

However, in India particularly, unethical and illegal clinical trials are most rampant and are conducted without fear because, say critics, there is no law to safeguard the interests of volunteers, while regulatory authorities,"by design or default", fail to take action against such trials.

The moot question then is, why are multinational drug companies increasingly preferring India to other poorer countries to outsource their clinical research and trial needs? Almost all top names, including Novo Nordisk, Aventis, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, have started running clinical drug trials in India lately, while some, such as Eli Lilly and Pfizer, which started much earlier, conduct tests on a number of their new drugs. Besides, a variety of both India-based and global contract/clinical research organizations that specialize in outsourced clinical trials management are working to expand India's clinical-trials business. These include Quintiles, Omnicare, PharmaNet and Pharm-Olam (all US-based).

The simple answer is India's huge billion-plus population and cheaper costs. According to a study by Rabo India Finance, a subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Rabo Bank, India's huge patient population also offers vast genetic diversity, making the country "an ideal site for clinical trials". For example, India has the largest pool of diabetic patients, with more than 20 million citizens suffering from the ailment - small wonder that insulin is one of the most researched drugs in the country. Moreover, many in the country's large poor-patient population are "treatment naive", which means they have never received drugs for treatment - a fact that simplifies patient enrollment and trial management. Besides this, the country also offers other facilities, such as nearly 700,000 specialty hospital beds, 221 medical colleges and skilled English-speaking medical personnel.

But obviously, India's most significant offering is cost savings. "More than 40% of drug development costs are incurred in clinical trials and India offers immense savings on that aspect," says Alok Gupta, country head for life sciences and biotechnology of Yes Bank, adding, "and importantly the trials can get done fast". Indeed, the cost-savings opportunity in the country is irresistible. For instance, in the US, trials for a standard drug can cost about $150 million, whereas the Rabo Bank study estimates that drugs could be tested in India for as little as 60% of that price.

Indian industry sources say that clinical-trials outsourcing is a "tempting" opportunity for the country's drug industry. In 2002, clinical trials were reckoned to have generated $70 million in revenues for the industry, which could grow to $200 million by 2007 and anywhere between $500 million and $1 billion by 2010. Globally, clinical research was estimated to be a $5 billion to $6 billion market in 2002, and according to Kiran Majumdar Shaw, chief executive officer of Biocon, it is expected to touch $10 billion by 2005. However, a study done in 2003 by Connecticut-based Business Communications Co says US-based spending on clinical trials is growing fast - at 12% per year - and should generate $26.5 billion by 2007.

This is why local industry sources feel that despite the ills, India should embrace and encourage drug trials and research in India. But there are better reasons as well. Rajesh Jain, managing director of Panacea Biotec Ltd, a prominent drug maker, says that for a country like India, the potential benefits of clinical research are far more than its hazards. "It brings in the best in industry practices in clinical research for the benefit of our population's health-care needs while exposing the medical community to global processes and standards," he says, adding: "If we are to benefit from the fruits of modern research, we, too, should be willing to pay the same price."

Nevertheless, rattled by the recent deaths and the public outcry, India's regulators have started sitting up. The Drug and Controller General of India (DCGI) said last week that beginning in September, it will put in place inspection systems to track the progress of drug trials from beginning to end. There will also be a new set of rules "to emphasize incorporating good clinical-practices protocols", a DCGI release said.

Industry critics are now hoping that the DCGI efforts will be the irst step in making clinical trials more accountable in the country. "

from: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FG23Df03.html


there was also a great documentary from the bbc about the industry using people in india to test their new products the wouldn't have been allowed to test on human in europe ot in the states. cant remember the title sorry

[dust shop]

Truth is, if there weren't drug giants pouring billions into R&D to create these drugs, there would be nothing for generics to reverse engineer. If drug giants are forced to comply to popular demand.. there would likely less cures to said illness.

not sure coz even when drug giants weren't there yet, the science was evolving anyway. it's all about people searching to improve the health of any human being not only the one that can pay!

[-blade-]

signed - the payment of vasella the ceo from novartis is about 25 mio.£ per year!

[autonomic]

signed.

even when drug giants weren't there yet, the science was evolving anyway. it's all about people searching to improve the health of any human being not only the one that can pay!

ethically, there's no justification for profit-driven drugs development. open source, nationalized drug research would eliminate the profit motive and function more in sync with real global and regional health priorities.

and novartis are f*****s just like the rest of them, not only in the pharmaceutical world, but also in agricultural biotech - e.g. their involvement in the development of 'terminator' seeds which produce plants that can't propagate themselves, forcing farmers the world over to buy seed every year rather than saving them as they've always done. they've also developed a 'post-terminator' seed with so-called 'traitor' technology which cripples the plant's immune system and requires that it be doused in the company's chemicals. i.e. eliminate the multitudinous plant varieties that have been adapted, over through centuries of breeding to specific bio-regions (including their climatic idiosyncracies and pests), and replace them with mass-produced monoculture that is specifically designed no to adapt so that it must remain on perpetual chemical life support.

[unlikely]

signed

[flipw]

shame there's no cure for the corporate virus

who taught the world to be so bad?

[parson]

harper's published a very controversial article claiming that hiv and AIDS have nothing to do with each other and its the drugs that are causing AIDS not hiv

http://www.harpers.org/OutOfControl.html

[-blade-]

life is count in terms of money.

[slowlygoingdeaf]

signed.

[lucky_strike]

there is 2 sides to this story,
do u think these indian companies r doin this to save peoples lives, NO! sum 1 is gettin rich off sum 1 elses product!

if it was something else u would not agree with it.
Novartis to many things to solve world illness, there is alot of facts missing from this!