Actup - Basel

India's Supreme Court to Hear Dispute on Drug Patents [NYTimes]

2012-03-07T02:27:38Z

MUMBAI, India — While China was becoming the world's shop floor, India took its place as the world's pharmacy, and in recent decades has been the largest provider of cheap, lifesaving medicines in poor countries across the globe. Add to Portfolio

Go to your Portfolio » But most of that medicine has been generic copies of brand-name drugs protected by patents in Europe and the United States. Now a big Swiss drug company, Novartis, may be one legal step away from upending the Indian supply chain by forcing the Indian government to recognize a patent for a cancer treatment heralded as a breakthrough for people with a deadly form of leukemia.

The Witch against Novartis — Episode I

2012-02-28T08:59:26Z

Watch Novartis Annual General Meeting

2012-02-28T05:15:03Z

The AGM webcast is still online on the Novartis website. To watch the intervention of Patrick Durisch from the Berne Declaration on Glivec during the Novartis General Assembly and Vasella/Jimenez's response, click here Once on the webcast page: go to "Agenda item 1" (scroll down menu under the video) & move to 00:37:30. Patrick Durisch speech lasts until 00:42:45, followed by D. Vasella's & J. Jimenez' response stating that they want 'a dialogue with Act Up' (00:42:45 -> 00:48:10).

See online : Watch Novartis Annual General Meeting in streaming

48 HOURS OF ACTION - Press review

2012-02-28T05:00:18Z

AFP : Protest against Novartis' Indian lawsuit on Glivec

AFP : Novartis/Inde: des ONG contre le groupe, qui veut un brevet pour le Glivec

Indian Glivec case concerns raised at Novartis' AGM at Basel

PharmaTimes : Novartis again urged to drop India patent lawsuit

Yahoo News - Protest against Novartis' Indian lawsuit on Glivec

France 24 - Protest against Novartis' Indian lawsuit on Glivec

Le Figaro : Inde: des ONG protestent contre Novartis

PharmaBiz : MSF seeks Novartis' shareholders to urge company to drop ongoing patent case against India

PharmaBiz : Novartis' AGM hit by shareholders' protest over continuing litigation against Sec 3(d) of India's Patents Act

Activists Occupy Novartis, Demand 'Drop the Gleevec Case'

Student Activists Occupy Novartis

L'Usine Nouvelle : Novartis veut un brevet en Inde, les ONG protestent

Με αφορμή δικαστική διαμάχη με την Ινδία Έκκληση των Γιατρών χωρίς Σύνορα προς τους μετόχους της Novartis

NGOs: Novartis bedroht Zugang zu Generika http://www.epo.de/index.php?option=...

IP watch : Novartis Before India's Supreme Court: What's Really At Stake?

Why global health activists are fired up about Novartis

2012-02-28T04:49:53Z

The following is a guest blog post by Professor Brook Baker of Northeastern University's School of Law, Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy, describing and commenting on pharmaceutical company Novartis's court challenge to India's strict standards of patenting medicine — standards that have increased access to affordable generic medications worldwide – and the Novartis protests that ensued last week.

Fifty AIDS activists, students, and community group members protested at Novartis's Institute for BioMedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., on February 22 – the eve of the Swiss pharmaceutical company's annual shareholders meeting in Basel, Switzerland. The protest was part of a global day of action drawing attention to the pharma giant's pending lawsuit against cancer patients and the government of India, aiming to reinterpret India's strict patent standards.

See online : Why global health activists are fired up about Novartis

Act Up-Basel launches the Witch Channel

2012-02-27T20:46:44Z

Act Up-Basel on social networks

2012-02-25T23:20:48Z

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Follow our Youtube Channel : http://www.youtube.com/user/ACTUPBASEL

Novartis : claws off our medicines !

2012-02-24T12:29:28Z

WATCH THE VIDEOS

This video (parts 1 and 2) was played in a loop during the rally in Basel yesterday during the Novartis Annual General Meeting (AGM). Screened at the steps of the building where the AGM was being held, the shareholders going in and out of the meeting had no choice but to hear and watch these messages. The people you will see and hear in this video are AIDS activists, people fighting for access to medicines across the world, people who get their medicines from India or just concerned individuals. Messages came from across the world including Argentina, Australia, Burkina Faso, Congo-Brazzaville, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, Ukraine

Novartis launches renewed attack on India's right to produce affordable medicines

2012-02-24T00:26:20Z

ACT UP-BASEL, ACT UP-PARIS, ASIA PACIFIC NETWORK OF POSITIVE PEOPLE (APN+), BERNE DECLARATION, HEALTH GAP, INTERNATIONAL TREATMENT PREPAREDNESS COALITION (ITPC) & OXFAM INTERNATIONAL

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 invented medicines not be granted unless it significantly enhances the efficiency of the medicine in treating human illness or disease.

Today, a few days before the hearing, Novartis' shareholders are meeting in Basel at their Annual General Meeting (AGM). As the Indian Government gears up to fight this legal battle, campaigning groups around the world, including Oxfam, the Berne Declaration, Health GAP, and Act Up, will be holding demonstrations to coincide with the day of the AGM, with a clear message for Novartis to stop the attack on the Indian law and generic medicines. The groups point out that the price of Novartis's Glivec is ten times the cost of generic equivalents. They also argue that Section 3(d) of the Indian Patent Act is a legitimate and invaluable flexibility that represents an important public health safeguard in Indian law meant to support access to essential medicines.

Rohit Malpani, Oxfam's Policy Advisor, said: “Novartis seems determined to pursue its case against the Indian Government. If they win the case the consequences will be devastating, not only for patients in India but also the millions of people in poor countries across the globe whose lives depend on the affordable generic medicines India currently produces.”

Patrick Durisch, Health Programme Coordinator of the Berne Declaration, a Swiss advocacy NGO, said: “What is at stake goes far beyond the granting of a patent for this anticancer drug. Glivec's successor drug Tasigna (nilotinib) has already been granted a patent in India. In fact, Novartis is acting as a corporate bully for all of Big Pharma to weaken the Indian Patents Act, so as to allow patenting on trivial changes to all sorts of existing medicines in the future.”

Brook Baker, a spokesperson from Act Up Basel and Health GAP said: “How long should poor people be forced to wait for new medicines – 20 years, 30 years, 40 years? To gain monopoly rights to sell to rich middle class consumers in India, Novartis is willing to sacrifice the health rights of a billion poorer Indians and a similar number of other poor patients worldwide. We defend India's rights to try to limit monopolization of trivial changes to existing medicines.”

Notes to editors: Full list of organisations protesting: ACT UP-BASEL, ACT UP-PARIS, ASIA PACIFIC NETWORK OF POSITIVE PEOPLE (APN+), BERNE DECLARATION, HEALTH GAP, INTERNATIONAL TREATMENT PREPAREDNESS COALITION (ITPC) & OXFAM INTERNATIONAL

What is the current Novartis case in India about?

Novartis patented the molecule imatinib in 1993. After the signing of the WTO TRIPS agreement by India in 1995, Novartis filed another patent application on the mesylate salt form of imatinib in 1998 at the Indian patent office. In 2005 India amended its patent law to comply with the WTO TRIPS agreement but also included Section 3(d) an important health safeguard that does not allow companies to get patents on new forms of old medicines. Novartis' application was rejected by the Indian patent office on several grounds including that the application claimed a new form of an already existing medicine. The company then sued the Indian Government, cancer patients and several generic companies in order to get its patent monopoly on imatinib mesylate by getting Section 3(d) knocked out of the patent law. Simultaneously, Novartis pursued a separate appeal of the denial of its patent application on Glivec arguing that it met the standards of India law. When its administrative appeal failed, Novartis appealed again, this time to the Indian Supreme Court to try and change the interpretation of Section 3(d). 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.

Gefährlicher Patentstreit

2012-02-23T10:14:20Z

See online : Gefährlicher Patentstreit