One drug now, maybe many more later, feels law prof following case

  

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Sulagna Sengupta : Kolkata, Wed Mar 1The victory won by Natco will prompt other companies to innovate pricing schemes that will pave the way for other drugs becoming cheaper, feels Shamnad Basheer, a law professor who has written extensively about the case.

Once Natco launches a generic version of Nexavar at Rs 8,800 per month, a fraction of the Rs 2.8 lakh that it costs now. around 9,000 patients suffering from kidney and liver cancer in India will benefit from it, Professor Basheer, who is in the faculty of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, told The Indian Express over the phone.

Basheer said Natco’s “baby step” may pave the way for “a giant leap of sorts”. It could lead to a reduction in the prices of most expensive lifesaving drugs, he said, given that more than 90 per cent of MNC-made drugs are imported. He felt even wholesale compulsory licences may be issued against a wide spectrum of drugs in the near future.

Basheer said the news would be “music to the ears” of several patient groups and NGOs that have been battling pharmaceutical patents and excessive prices for years. Many have been puzzled by the lack of initiative shown by generic companies in availing of the extremely wide compulsory licensing grounds articulated in India's patent regime, he said.

Yet, he feels, the last may not have been heard from Bayer, the manufacturer of the original drug. Bayer is likely to appeal the order in the Intellectual Property Tribunal Court and adopt creative legal strategies to block the order from being implemented, as it has done in the past, he said.