The value of IP rights to innovation

Novartis firmly believes that patents save lives by stimulating research, leading to innovative medicines. Ranjit Shahani, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Novartis India Limited, explains the importance of GIPAP to India, the significance of Glivec to cancer patients, and the value of intellectual property rights to medical innovation. For more information about our perspective on access to medicines and patent protection in India, please visit our India Glivec patent case information center at: http://www.novartis.com/about-novartis/corporate-citizenship/india-glivec-pat....

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Novartis
• India
• Glivec
• Gleevec
• patent
• lawsuit
• corporate
• citizenship
• intellectual
• property
• medicines
• innovation
• Oxfam
• CML

[pogularocky]

@daytripper7

Maybe you should readup first on how patented AIDS/HIV drugs cost $20,000 to $30,000 per patient per year, while CIPLA's generic version costs $150 per patient per year. That is fucking insane. How can a poor Somalian or Indian afford to pay $20,000 to live? Patents have to be limited to drugs for just non-life-threatening diseases. Scientists will innovate for life threatening diseases for sheer human cause, like history proves.

[CabbageNappa]

also, how can patents encourage innovation when they beat down competition? look at software, how much has Internet Explorer innovated in contrast to open source and semi-open source browsers like Opera, Firefox, and Chrome?

[CabbageNappa]

patents are another cause for the ever-growing gap between rich and poor. to all the communists out there, intellectual property "rights" are the modern variation of the factories owned exclusively by the bourgeoise, and to libertarians and classical liberals they are a vice on the free market and an unnatural and state created "right".

[harshvardhan1]

may be in longer course of time , you would fetch enough market as indian market and consumer though not aware , but one cannot say anthing for indian market . i am supporter of patents and respect your words but this is a developing nation with high GDP , but as you said it earlier ; there are two india's so there will be ever , so would you be providing those medicines forever for free as you are providing now as you said .

REALLY ?  i am a lawyer and studying patents

[harshvardhan1]

you are a very good manager , spoke such sweetly but you can not reverse the law , and there is no question of protecting patents . when small companies can copy your products and sell it at cheaper why can't you do it ?.

[harshvardhan1]

yes but donot you think that a patent drug is a quality drug and a quality drug if patented have more price , so in india we have to copy the others so provide cheaper medicines to the ailing sprawling india . and there are also two types of indians , one who speaks for country

and another who works for foreign companies and use india in name but have nothing to do with any classes neither sprinting nor sprawling ? you have to say something ?

[Tony63efc]

In principle patents should be protected but at Doha poor countries were given the right to place the health of their people first.

[seanieb]

From the BBC "A court challenge to India's patent laws by the pharmaceutical giant Novartis could cut the supply of affordable medicines to treat Aids and other epidemics in the developing world, aid agencies say."

they sound like a really nice bunch....

[daytripper7]

I don't think most people understand the issues at play here. What Novartis is asking India to do is to behave like the rest of the WTO members. Really, this is in India's best interest in order to continue development via foreign direct investment.

I hope that people start to read up on this topic rather than doing what's fashionable when it comes to forming opinions of the pharmaceutical industry.