That the compulsory licence verdict in favour of NATCO Pharma would change the landscape of the pharma industries the world over was never in doubt. The verdict was hailed as ‘revolutionary’, ‘path-breaking’ and hailed as ‘a triumph for humanity’ by NATCO CFO and director P Bhaskara Narayana and we are already beginning to see ramifications of that decision with a Mumbai-based pharma called BDR Pharma applying for a compulsory licence with the Mumbai Patent Office.
The application is for a Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) drug called Sprycel (Generic Name: Dasatnib) which will be 90-95% cheaper than the BMS version. The drug is used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia, a cancer of the white blood cells and the treatment costs Rs 1.6 lakh per month.
Check out the symptoms of chronic myeloid leukaemia.
The application which was filed on March 4, says that BDR Pharma will provide the treatment for Rs 8,100 per month. Confirming this, BDR Pharma founder and CMD Dharmesh Shah told TOI, ‘We are waiting for the reply of the patent authorities on our application of compulsory license.’
Read: Generic drugs: All you need to know
Earlier BDR pharma had sought a voluntary licence from Bristol-Myers Squibb and according to a media report the BMS raised some invalid queries which forced BDR’s hand to apply for a compulsory licence. Dasatnib is only one of the three drugs for which the government had sought a compulsory licence along with trastuzumab and ixabepilone – all cancer drugs.
What is compulsory licensing?
It’s a practice by which a company’s intellectual property rights can be overruled. The WTO-TRIPS 2006 gives developing nations’ governments the right to hand out compulsory licenses in case it deems that the product is too costly for the public. It’s particularly important in drug pricing because it allows local companies the right to create generic versions of drugs and sell them at a lower rate. The Indian Patent office became the first government body to hand out one when they allowed a local pharma to re-engineer an expensive foreign cancer drug and sell it at a cut-price rate.
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