I think this is some additional fall out over the news a short while back where India over ruled the Bayer patent. The link below has more on the history of what occurred. 
This could stand to have some impact on relations with India when the US international Trade Commission looks into the matter. When you look at the moral reason as to why this decision was made, people in India were dying and had no access to the drug due to cost. It also put Roche on high alert with their drug policies and patents with India.
The CEO in his statement pretty much says we intend to go where the money’s at with insurers mostly who will pay for the cost of the drug and it will be interesting to see if that has any future effect here in the US. The price went from $69,000 to $177 for the cost of the generic in India for Nexavar. Access to drugs due to cost is certainly on the front burner in more ways than one and how this continues to develop, who knows. BD
In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Bayer CEO Marijn Dekkers said that his company’s new cancer drug, Nexavar, isn’t “for Indians,” but “for western patients who can afford it.”
The drug, which is particularly effective on late-stage kidney and liver cancer, costs approximately $69,000 per year in India, so in March 2012 an Indian court granted a license to an Indian company to produce to the drug at a 97 percent discount.
Bayer sued Natco Pharma Ltd., but in March of last year, the High Court in Mumbai denied its appeal. Bayer CEO called the compulsory license issued by the Indian court “essentially theft,” then said “[w]e did not develop this medicine for Indians…[w]e developed it for western patients who can afford it.”
0 comments :
Post a Comment