Till then BOYCOTT TWO PRODUCTS OF NOVARTIS:-
Voveran and Calcium Sandoz
For more details click on this link:-
http://www.mediafire.com/?ggx799qsexg4o0h
More information can be accessed at:-
1. http://www.msfaccess.org/content/update-intellectual-property-battles-continue-india-novartis-trial-further-delayed
2. http://www.lawyerscollective.org/files/Access%20-%20Vol%20III,%20No_%202.pdf
India makes cheap medicines for poor people around the world. The EU, pharmaceutical firms and now the US are pressuring the ‘pharmacy of the developing world’ to change tack
Next month, the supreme court of India will hear final arguments in a long-running case between Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis and the Indian government. Novartis is seeking extended intellectual property protection for a marginally modified anti-cancer drug, Glivec, for which the original patent has run out. This is a practice known as evergreening, seen by many as an unfair way for pharmaceutical companies to maintain artificially high drug prices in developing markets. That is certainly the view of the Indian government, which, in 2005, inserted a clause into its intellectual property law deliberately intended to prevent the practice.
For more information click:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/jul/26/pharmaceutical-companies-health-worlds-poor-risk
FRONTLINE
Apr 21 – May 04, 2012
PATENT TO PLUNDER
1. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/
2. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/
3. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/
4. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/
5. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/
6. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/
7. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/
8. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/
9. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/
1) A victory for Novartis could spell death for millions (The Hindu)
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2427529.ece
2) Novartis vs India: the court will decide (New Internationalist)
http://www.newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2011/11/29/novartis-india-patent-case/
3) Indian Supreme Court To Hear Novartis Challenge To India’s Patent Law (IP Watch)
http://www.ip-watch.org/2011/09/06/indian-supreme-court-to-hear-novartis-challenge-to-india-patent-law/
4) Novartis fights patent rejection in Indian court (WIBV)
http://www.wivb.com/dpp/health/cancer/novartis-fights-patent-rejection-in-indian-court
5) The war against Novartis is not yet won (Info Change)
http://infochangeindia.org/other/analysis/the-war-against-novartis-is-not-yet-won.html
6) One man is masterminding this stealthy attack on the health of millions — Ranjit Shahani, who heads Novartis India and India’s massively powerful pharmaceutical lobby group. When 100,000 people have signed the petition we’ll stage hard hitting actions targeting Shahani by name and push him to drop the case: http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_novartis_in_india/?vl
7) In days, Swiss pharma giant Novartis may get the Indian Supreme Court to shut down our supply of affordable medicines. If Novartis wins, it will stop Indian companies producing low-cost medicines, depriving millions around the world of the treatments they need. The final hearing is in 2 days — let’s call on Novartis to drop the case with a massive Indian public outcry. Sign the petition now:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_novartis_in_india/?cl=1684592596&v=13406
PRESS RELEASE: RE-LAUNCH OF “BOYCOTT NOVARTIS” CAMPAIGN
Novartis’ Supreme Court case threatens access to medicines in India and across the world
Drug Action Forum – Karnataka objects to Novartis’ long legal attack on health safeguards in India’s patent law
The Drug Action Forum – Karnataka (DAF-K), an organisation engaged in promoting issues related to public health in India, announces a call to boycott all products manufactured by Swiss MNC, Novartis, till Novartis withdraws its Supreme Court case (SC 20539 – 20549/2009) for seeking a patent on Glivec/Gleevec and abandon all its attempts and plans to misuse Indian decision making and redressal systems for its narrow ends. This is a renewal of the boycott call as the Supreme Court case hearing starts on 28thMarch 2012. The hearing on 28th March 2012 has posted the next hearing on Tuesday, 10th July 2012, as a result of the Mumbai terror attack trial running months behind schedule. The division bench in the Supreme Court comprises of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana P Desai
THE FULL TEXT OF THE LETTER CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM THE LINK GIVEN BELOW. (express solidarity with the campaign by disseminating the DAF-K press release to local media)
To,
Shri Salman Khurshid
Honourable Minister for Law & Justice,
Ministry of Law and Justice
A-Wing, 4th Floor, Shastri Bhawan
New Delhi – 110 001
Tel: 23387557/23384567
Fax: 23015223, 23384241
Re: Novartis AG v. Union of India and others (SC 20539 – 20549/2009)
and
Re: Urgent concerns over Supreme Court hearing
Dear Minister,
We are writing this letter to highlight an extremely sensitive matter regarding a sitting judge of the Supreme Court in an ongoing matter i.e. Novartis AG v. Union of India and others (SC 20539 – 20549/2009). The case is the final stage of an ongoing battle by Novartis’ two-fold attempt to get a patent on an anti-cancer medicine and weaken the health safeguards in the Indian Patent law.
TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL LETTER CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK:-
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?dqbe1z2dgo87kbt
For the past 6 years drug giant Novartis has been pursuing a legal case in India that threatens access to life-saving affordable medicines for millions across the developing world.
As the case now opens before the Indian Supreme Court, join MSF & tell Novartis that people matter more than profits.
Deccan Herald » Edit Page » Detailed Story
IN PERSPECTIVE
By Gopal Dabade
Deccan Herald
If patents are granted to a company, the price of the drug would be beyond the reach of the masses.
Just a few days back several groups of individuals, known popularly by their acronyms as INP+ and PWN, which stand for Indian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS and the Positive Women’s Network, working and campaigning for the rights of those having HIV/AIDS (most of them need medicines just for their just survival) celebrated it. Not many know and appreciate this victory. It was because Boehringer Ingelheim, the Germany based giant — a profit making drug manufacturing company — had its patent application rejected by the Indian Patent Office at Delhi, for a drug by name Nevirapine.
Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world’s 20 leading pharmaceutical companies operating globally in 47 countries. In 2007, the company posted net sales of 10.9 billion euro, thus proving to be among the most profitable and also a powerful drug company in the world.
The drug nevirapine sold by the company under the trade name Viramune is used by AIDS patients. It is specially useful when the pregnant mother is HIV positive, as it needs to be either administered to her just before the baby is born or given to the baby soon after birth as it prevents the new born getting HIV.
By Tatum Anderson for Intellectual Property Watch
One of the most vocal voices for the interests of cancer patients in India says it will use the courts to force the Indian government to declare cancer a national emergency, in an attempt to make cancer drugs affordable to sufferers.
The Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA) wants the Indian government to issue permits, called compulsory licences, for a number of drugs it has deemed unaffordable. Such permits would allow generic pharmaceutical companies to manufacture the drugs instead of the patent holders. It believes that the prices would then drop considerably.
Under Indian patent law, no one can apply for a compulsory licence for the first three years after a patent has been granted, unless the government declares one of four emergency criteria: a national emergency, extreme urgency, a case for public non-commercial use or a patentee has employed anti-competitive practices. (After three years anyone can apply for a licence under much broader set of criteria.) Continue reading
Even with the rejection of the appeal by from Novartis AG by the High Court in Madras on the ground that it was only an incremental innovation, the pharmaceutical companies appear to be aggressively pursuingand securingpatents for drugs that would fall under Indias frivolous patenting guidelines that bar such incremental innovations from getting patent protection.The Indian Patent Act specifies that incremental innovations should not be granted product patents unless its efficacy is proved to be significantly superior to its generic product.
Several drug firms, mostly large multinational companies, have filed more than one application for a single drug, already patented, by making minor modifications. They are filing such applications at different patent offices in India.
Indias four regional patent offices are located in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. Since these offices operate independently without a coordinated single system to process these applications, many such patent applications on incremental innovations have already been granted patents, claims Anand Grower, a senior lawyer with Lawyers Collective, a Mumbai-based non-governmental organization that deals with issues related to health care and access to medicine.