The video screened at the steps of the building where Novartis General Assembly was being held
Act Up-Basel, Act Up-Paris, APN+, Berne Declaration, Health GAP, ITPC & Oxfam International
Novartis launches renewed attack on India’s right to produce affordable medicines
In 2006, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis launched a legal battle challenging India’s adoption of strict standards used to regulate patents on medicines. They argued that Section 3(d) of the recently amended Patents Act was ‘unconstitutional and violated international standards’ and wanted a 20-year patent monopoly on their anti-cancer medicine, Glivec (Gleevec in the USA). Global campaigning organisations, backed by half a million people, voiced their opposition and Novartis lost the case. However Novartis is trying again to undermine India’s right to produce affordable medicines and next week, on February 28, there will be a hearing in the Indian Supreme Court. The company is now challenging the established interpretation of Section (d) which requires a minor variation to previously (...)
ACT UP-BASEL : WHO ARE WE ?
Act Up Basel acts to promote universal access to affordable medicines of assured quality. Whether it is the developed world or developing countries, access to treatment and care is an issue that concerns each one of us. From major pandemics (tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria), to neglected diseases (chagas, sleeping sickness, etc.), to chronic diseases (cancers, diabetes, respiratory diseases, cardiovascular or neurological), many people through the world spend disproportionate amounts to access expensive treatment and care. Research for rare diseases (genetic disorders or "tropical") is neglected by big pharmaceutical companies and often whole populations are ignored because they do not constitute markets profitable enough for the pharmaceutical industry to pay attention to. . In (...)
Novartis lies threaten our lives : Act Up-Basel launched to declare the war on pharma
BASEL, SWITZERLAND – Tomorrow in New Delhi, the next hearing of the case brought by the Basel-based pharmaceutical firm Novartis against the Indian government is scheduled to take place. Novartis is challenging a critical health safeguard – section 3(d) of Indian Patents Act in the Supreme Court of India – to secure monopoly control over its life-saving cancer medicine, Glivec. In essence, Novartis wants section 3(d), which requires stringent evidence of proof of significantly enhanced therapeutic efficacy if a modification of an existing pharmaceutical entity is to receive new patent protection, to be reinterpreted to allow routine “ever-greening” of minor modifications to existing medicines resulting in additional 20-year patent monopolies. If Novartis wins this case, the ability of (...)
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