kumble_rocks Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 Bump for CC and others ! This is great news for Indian Pharmacy and for poor people in the world .I am glad Novartis lost this case in Indian Court ! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6933015.stm An Indian court has thrown out a challenge to the country's patent laws by Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis. The firm wanted the law changed after its bid to patent a new version of its anti-cancer drug Glivec was rejected in April this year. It argued the law - which bans new patents for modifications to existing drugs - broke world trade rules. But the court in Chennai ruled it had no jurisdiction over the rules set by the World Trade Organization. Novartis, which still has an appeal pending on the Glivec ruling, said it disagreed but would probably not appeal the decision until it saw the court's full judgement. While Novartis has argued that the 2005 law threatens innovation, anti-poverty campaigners say that pharmaceutical companies can keep control of their drugs beyond the life of initial patents by patenting small modifications. That, they say, means generic - and therefore cheaper - versions will take longer to get to the market. Indian drug firms are among the world's leading manufacturers of generics, affordable by the country's poor. "We disagree with this ruling, however we likely will not appeal to the Supreme Court," said Ranjit Shahani, vice chairman and managing director of Novartis India. "We await the full decision to better understand the court's position." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CC1981 Posted August 6, 2007 Author Share Posted August 6, 2007 Good news, KR ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 Bump for CC and others ! This is great news for Indian Pharmacy and for poor people in the world .I am glad Novartis lost this case in Indian Court ! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6933015.stm An Indian court has thrown out a challenge to the country's patent laws by Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis. Good news this! Reminds me of a little stint that I once did for a Pharma major. This company is one of the top 5 in the world(or was so 4-5 years back) and its name starts with A and ends with T. Okay so I was doing the Business Intelligence project for their Financial group. Which meant amongst others I had access to Sales and Finance Data that eventually ends up booming or busting the stock. Imagine my surprise when I would see big amounts, you are talking of billions, going into Sundry expenses. Upon further inquiry I was told that these "expenses" were used to settle law suits etc. Now how were these billions obtained? By putting an extra 2% on each medicine you buy. In other words if you buy Paracetamol you would still be paying extra bucks in case the company land into some legal hassles regarding its TB medicine!! I would say even when it comes to legal expenses the Pharma companies have it set up so that they would end up making money out of it. And guess who pays for it....YOU. xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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