More than a hundred global health and cancer groups have condemned Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company Roche for, what they termed, inhuman pricing of its breast cancer drug trastuzumab and its abusive patenting practices that are preventing access to potentially more affordable biosimilars.

These groups have called upon the company to honour Tobeka Daki, a South Africa breast cancer patient who was prescribed trastuzumab but could not afford it and died in November last year.

In a memorandum addressed to Roche, women living with cancer, families of people with cancer, activists, scientists, researchers and health professionals from across the world condemned Roche and highlighted the immoral and unconscionable tactics employed by Roche across the developed and developing world. Roche’s greed is preventing women from accessing affordable versions of trastuzumab, an essential medicine used in the treatment of breast cancer.

“In India Roche has embroiled India’s drug regulatory body and biosimilar producers in long-running and increasingly complex litigation to prevent the widespread availability of potentially affordable versions of trastuzumab,” said Kalyani Menon Sen, a women’s rights activist from India. “Even as Roche withdrew its patent applications on trastuzumab in India in the face of patent oppositions that were likely to succeed, it applied new ways to continue to be the sole supplier. We are demanding that they immediately cease all litigation against biosimilar products.”

Roche maintains its high prices in every way possible. Roche holds multiple evergreened patents on trastuzumab in certain countries across the world. In South Africa, for example, multiple patents extend Roche’s monopoly until 2033. In countries where the patents expired or do not exist, Roche is using other means to block potentially more affordable biosimilar versions coming to market, these groups said.

The recent upsurge against Roche was triggered by the death of Tobeka Daki – a leading cancer activist from South Africa whose own struggle against cancer ended last year and the global day of action was led by women living with cancer in South Africa who gathered outside Roche’s office in Johannesburg demanding justice for Daki.  
 
“In South Africa today, we launched the Tobeka Daki Campaign for Access to Trastuzumab. In loving memory of a fearless activist who lead our struggle to ensure women could get this medicine,” said Salomé Meyer of the Cancer Alliance in South Africa. “Even as the likelihood of her being able to get trastuzumab diminished, Tobeka’s determination to ensure other women could access the medicine only grew stronger.”
 
Despite being a good candidate for trastuzumab, Tobeka was never able to access the treatment due to its high cost. In South Africa the annual price charged by Roche in the private sector is around US$ 38 365 (ZAR 516,700). The few public facilities which can access trastuzumab do so at a lower price of around US$ 15 735 (ZAR 211,920) per year. But, health economists have shown that a year’s worth of trastuzumab can be produced and sold for only US$ 240, a price that includes a 50 per cent increase above the cost of production for profit.

These groups have demanded to Roche to drop the price of trastuzumab and T-DM1 so that all women living with HER2+ breast cancer who need these medicines can access them; immediately cease all litigation against biosimilar versions of trastuzumab; stop abusive patenting practices that needlessly extend patent monopoly on trastuzumab and other medicines; and immediately cease litigation against the Brazilian and Argentinian governments for their use of TRIPS flexibilities.

ACT UP London; ACT UP New York; ACT UP Paris; AIDS Access Foundation, Thailand; AIDS and Rights Alliance of Southern Africa (ARASA); All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN), India; All-Ukrainian Network of PLWHA, Ukraine;
Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare, India; Asia Pacific Council of AIDS Service Organisations (APCASO), Thailand;  Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (APN+);  Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW); Association of Korean medicine Doctors for Health rights (AKDH), South Korea; Association of Physicians for Humanism (APH), South Korea;  Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA), Brazil;  Cancer Alliance, South Africa; Cape Mental Health, South Africa;  Center for Health and Social Change (SHSC), South Korea; Center for Research of Environment, Appropriate Technology, and Advocacy (CREATA), Indonesia; Charitable Foundation of Patients "Blood drop", Ukraine; Child With Future, Ukraine; Children with Hemophilia, Ukraine; Coalition Plus, France; and Community Development Centre, Malaysia are some of the groups who have signed the memorandum to Roche.