Attention – Due To Allegations of Plagiarism, This Article Is Highly SuspectÂ
Major multi national drug companies are killing us softly and surely even as debates about TRIPS, intellectual property rights , the Mashlekar committee report and other such concerns sail over our head. These and other hens will come home to roost when their implications hit us in real life. Let me share an instance:
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A few weeks ago, I got an e mail from some one practising medicine in China. He had come to know of me through a mutual friend. This doctor in china had a patient who was suffering from chronic myeloid leukaemia and needed a drug called Imatinib. The drug was a product of the Swiss drug giant (Glivec) and at the price at which it was available in China, it was going to cost his patient a whopping Rs. One Lakh per month for an indefinite period, given the nature of cancer treatment. But the doctor had heard that in India, generic versions of the drug were available which were available at much lower prices and could I please check about the actual cost and availability.
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The campaign against cheaper access to drugs, initially highlighted by the high cost of anti retro virals has now spread to look at other drugs with global religious leaders having joined worldwide demands that the company withdraw the case in India. These include Nobel Prize winner, Desmond Tutu, Bishop Yvon Ambroise of the Commission for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India, Prawate Khidharn, General Secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia, Bishop Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the EvangelicalLutheranChurch in America. Charitable associations see Novartis’ challenge as one against the right of worldwide poor patients for affordable drugs.
Even as drug companies see their only loyalty to the share holder and there is and will be a perennial clash between private profit and public interest , the only way out seems to be to break the gird lock of private funding in the research of new drugs and encourage, publicise and encourage initiatives like the Neglected Diseases Foundation whose vision it is to improve the quality of life & the health of people suffering from neglected diseases by developing new drugs or new formulations of existing drugs for patients suffering from these diseases. The foundation has broken new ground by launching ASAQ, a none patented, once a day, fixed dose anti malarial, the first new anti malarial drug in decades. Even as drug companies for the most part treat the sick as vulnerable milking cows, initiatives like the Neglected Diseases Foundation deserve all the publicity; encouragement and funding that they need to expand their portfolio.
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