NGOs to PM: Don't sacrifice interests of Indian consumers, pharma industry

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NGOs to PM: Don't sacrifice interests of Indian consumers, pharma industry

Thu, Nov 4 05:47 AM

In an open letter to the Prime Minister, more than a dozen civil society experts

belonging to various health NGOs have said that if the demands of the

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) are met, the

self-reliant India pharma industry and consumers will be hit.

The letter states that the US-based PhRMA delegation is in India to discourage

the government from applying FDI caps in the pharma sector and from issuing

compulsory licenses for patented medicines.

The NGOs have appealed to the government not to succumb to pressure from

US-based companies and the US government. Experts including Dr Amit Sengupta, Dr

Mira Shiva, S Srinivasan, Dr C M Gulhati, Dr Anant Phadke, Dr Gopal Dabade, Loon

Gangte, Amitava Guha, Dr B Ekbal, Prabir Purkayastha, , Leena Menghaney, and K M

Gopakumar and others pointed out that the immediate cause of concern was the

takeover of important Indian companies by MNCs.

The last four years have seen six major acquisitions of Indian companies. There

have been several tie-ups between MNCs and domestic companies. In 1998-99 of the

10 largest drug companies in India, only one (Glaxo Kline) was a foreign

company, today three of the top ten companies are foreign owned (Ranbaxy, Glaxo

Kline and Piramal), said Dr Anant Phadke of the Jan Arogya Abhiyan.

The experts pointed out that India is the largest supplier of low-priced

anti-retrovirals and exports medicines to over 200 countries. At the same time

the WHO has reported that about 68 crore people don't have access to essential

medicines. The letter suggests some concrete policy measures " to rescue India

from the opprobrium of being home to the largest number of people without access

to essential medicines "

Phadke Dr Abhay Shukla, Anand Pawar and others of SATHI-CEHAT pointed out that

there was a need for the liberal use of the compulsory license (CL) provisions

of the Indian Patents Act to secure access to patented medicines and therefore

lower costs of medicines.

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