A large number of patient groups, public interest organisations including MSF, treatment providers and academia world-wide have urged the newly constituted IPR Think Tank not to revisit or challenge democratically-determined and legally-consistent intellectual property rules introduced under India’s Patent Act.  Instead, these groups have called upon the Think Tank to invest its expertise, time and resources to focus its mandate upon the proper implementation and operationalisation of public health safeguards in India’s patent law.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) of  the union commerce ministry had recently constituted an IPR Think Tank under Justice (Retd) Prabha Sridevan to draft the National Intellectual Property Rights Policy and to advice the DIPP on IPR issues.

In a letter, the public interest groups brought to the notice of the IPR Think Tank that India has played a pivotal role in supplying affordable generic versions of drugs used throughout the developing world. The availability of ‘fixed-dose combination’ HIV/AIDS therapy (or three-in-one pills) at affordable prices 1 USD per day in 2001 revolutionised AIDS treatment, a fact we collectively have witnessed firsthand in many developing countries.

Providing this form of treatment adapted to resource-poor settings has only been possible because there were no patent constraints in India on putting these medicines together in one tablet. Currently, over 80 per cent of people living with HIV on treatment in low- and middle-income countries use generic antiretrovirals manufactured in India. As a result of generic competition from India, the cost of first-line HIV treatment has come down by 99 per cent, from over 10,000 USD to approximately a 100 USD per patient per year. HIV/AIDS is just one example. India supplies affordable generic drugs for a variety of medical problems that affect patients, including both communicable and non-communicable diseases, it said.

In the present context of heightened US pressure on the DIPP and the Indian government, we believe that any re-opening of the discussion on patentability criteria, interpretation of Indian patent law and introduction of TRIPS plus standards will be extremely contentious and provide an opportunity for multinational pharmaceutical companies and USTR to take forward their agenda to undermine generic competition from India at the expense of public health safeguards in India’s patent law and its negotiating position in various bilateral and international forums, the public interest groups said, and added that any examination of IP issues by the Think Tank must not further undermine access to medicines and India’s standing as the pharmacy of the developing world, on which millions around the world rely.