Archive for the ‘Pharmaceutical Drugs’ Category
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
In 1999, between 1.3 and 2.1 billion people did not have access to essential medicines (around 30% of the world’s population), with most of these people being concentrated in Africa and India.[1] In May 2004, after pressure from Canadian civil society groups and Stephen Lewis (the UN Special Envoy on ...
Posted in Pharmaceutical Drugs, Cross Border Issues, Patents, IP | 3 Comments »
Monday, March 17th, 2008
Issues surrounding medicine patents truly test the moral groundings of patent law. Specifically, when companies develop and patent drugs that treat life threatening diseases, the inherent morality behind restrictive patent laws seems to lose legitimacy. The objectives underlying intellectual property must be weighed against the immediate humanitarian agenda. The anti-patent ...
Posted in Pharmaceutical Drugs | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
Thailand is at war, with battles taking place on several fronts. Over
600,000 people in Thailand are infected with HIV and the government is
fighting the epidemic by administering HIV treatment and medication
through its universal healthcare system.
But HIV drugs are costly. In order to provide its people with ...
Posted in Pharmaceutical Drugs, Patents, IP | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
In 2003, the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development ("Tufts")
estimated the cost to develop a new drug to be in excess of $850 million.
Today, that figure is likely well into the billions. Tufts also found
that approximately 20% of new drugs that enter clinical testing eventually
receive U.S. marketing approval. ...
Posted in Pharmaceutical Drugs, Cross Border Issues, Patents | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
India’s rejection of Novartis’ claim on drug improvements highlights the flexibility of India’s patent laws. Such flexibility stands in sharp contrast to the World Trade Organization’s efforts to set standards for intellectual property regulation (via TRIPS agreement) and has enabled India to ...
Posted in Pharmaceutical Drugs, Cross Border Issues, Patents | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
In an attempt to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Thailand, the Thai government decided to bypass the patents on anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) by issuing compulsory licenses to manufacture generic copies of these drugs. The result of this gutsy move is affordable, locally-made alternatives that are dispensed to patients for free ...
Posted in Pharmaceutical Drugs, Patents, IP | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
A Swiss pharmaceutical company, Novartis, sought to have the January 2006 decision to reject its patent application for the cancer drug imatinib mesylate (Gleevec) reversed by the Chennai High Court in India. Gleevec is used in the treatment of Leukemia. Novartis sells Gleevec at $2500 per patient per ...
Posted in Pharmaceutical Drugs, Patents, IP | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
In January 2006, the Patent Office of Chennai rejected the patent
application by Novartis for patent of the drug Gleevec (chemically known
as imatinib mesylate). Since then till date, the Novartis saga has
prompted numerous headlines and scores of commentaries. What is so unique
about the entire controversy? After all, aren’t patent applications
rejected by ...
Posted in Pharmaceutical Drugs, Patents | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
India, which followed the approach of process patenting to
pharmaceuticals switched over to product patenting by way of an amendment
in 2005 in order to be in consonance with the TRIPs agreement. However,
India also used the flexibility offered by the WTO rules, which while
setting a minimum standard for patent protection, restrained from ...
Posted in Pharmaceutical Drugs, Patents, IP | 1 Comment »
