PHM-Exch> Fwd: [Ip-health] NGO Statement on Glivec at Novartis Annual General Meeting

Fri Feb 24 00:30:34 PST 2012

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Patrick Durisch <durisch at ladb.ch>
Date: Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 6:19 PM
Subject: [Ip-health] NGO Statement Glivec at Novartis Annual General Meeting
To: ip-health at lists.keionline.org

Please find below the statement delivered today at the Novartis AGM

Statement by the Berne Declaration on behalf of an international NGO
coalition at the Novartis Annual General Meeting of 23 February 2012 in
Basel (Switzerland)

My name is Patrick Durisch, I am the health programme coordinator of the
Berne Declaration, a Swiss public interest NGO that has been engaged for
more than 40 years on issues related to corporate social and environmental
responsibility of Swiss companies. I am speaking here on behalf of an
international NGO-Coalition including Oxfam, Act Up, the Berne Declaration
and Health GAP, united in the call to Novartis to Drop the Glivec Patent
Case in India.

On various past occasions, including last year at this same tribune, we
asked Novartis to drop its legal case in India regarding its blockbuster
anticancer medicine Glivec. Many NGOs and shareholders associations have
done so as well. The battle for exclusive patent rights over Glivec is one
of the longest and most controversial intellectual property debates on
medicines since India aligned its patent rules in conformity with the World
Trade Organization's TRIPS agreement in 2005.

However, nothing has changed, and the case is not yet resolved. Novartis is
still persisting in this endless legal battle, despite three consecutive
defeats in Indian courts since 2006. Now Novartis has reached the Supreme
Court, as final hearings are scheduled to take place very soon.

What is at stake goes far beyond the only granting of a patent for this
anticancer drug. This legal challenge aims in fact at weakening a
legitimate and invaluable public health clause of the Indian law, section
3(d), which intends to limit the multiplication of patents on trivial
changes to existing medicines, a common practice by multinational
pharmaceutical companies known as "evergreening". Thanks to this safeguard,
patent applications on minor modifications of existing AIDS medicines, as
well as medicines to treat other diseases, have been rejected in lndia
since 2006, allowing for competition with generic equivalents upon the
expiry of the patent term.

lf Novartis succeeds in weakening the interpretation of Section 3(d) for
the purpose of obtaining a patent on Glivec, it would force lndia to grant
far more patents than it is required to under international trade rules.
This would practically undermine India's status as the "pharmacy of the
developing world", as India is commonly referred to internationally.

Last year, I highlighted in more details the flaws of Novartis'
unsustainable Glivec International Patient Assistance Programme and the
unjustified global high pricing of the medicine. Claiming as Novartis does
that this case will in no way impact access to medicines to poor countries
is not true and is irresponsible. With net sales of $4.7 billion in 2011,
Novartis can easily survive without a patent for Glivec in India, whilst
its designated successor, Tasigna, was already granted one in India,
according to our sources.  Novartis and other companies have also obtained
patents for many other key medicines when the applications met India's
patentability criteria.

Novartis must immediately cease its attack on the Indian law and generic
medicines. Campaigning groups around the world are protesting today outside
this AGM, to alert about the potentially devastating consequences for
poorer populations. Nearly 40,000 signatures have been collected these last
days through an international web campaign launched by the global web
movement Avaaz, urging Novartis to drop the case.

Ladies and Gentlemen, a pharmaceutical company which restricts the easy
access to life-saving drugs and thereby neglects the human right to health,
is a contradiction in itself. By dropping the case, Novartis would send a
strong signal that it works for the benefit of sick people and not for
their harm. We hope that our demands will be heard at last.

I thank you for your attention.

Patrick Durisch

-----

Déclaration de Berne - Berne Declaration

Patrick Durisch

Responsable Programme Santé - Health Programme Coordinator

Rue de Genève 52, CH - 1004 Lausanne

Tel. direct: +41 21 620 03 06

Fax: +41 21 620 03 00

Email: durisch at ladb.ch <mailto:durisch at ladb.ch>

Web: www.ladb.ch <http://www.ladb.ch/>

****************

Swiss Trading SA. La Suisse, le négoce et la malédiction des matières
premières (env. 350 pp.)
Le nouveau livre de référence de la DB est sorti de presse le 19 septembre
2011.

A commander ici : http://www.ladb.ch/livre-négoce <
http://www.ladb.ch/livre-négoce>

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