Novartis throttling AIDS relief operations in developing countries

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis is challenging the Indian Governments decision to put peoples health before patents and profits. Until 2005, India was able to produce affordable versions of medicines which was pateneted elsewhere, since the country did not grant pharmaceutical patents.

Indian drugs constitute one quarter of the drugs brought by over 30 developing countries worldwide. 80% of medicines used for the treatment of AIDS in the developing countries come from India. Novartis is effectively trying to shut down the pharmacy of the developing world.

India has 5.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, according to the United Nations, which is the world's highest caseload. But the prevalence rate is much lower than in most of Africa.

India complied to the The World Trade Organization's (WTO) Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement in 2005. But this agreement includes provisions to safeguard public health and India has included only these in its patent laws.

The Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health signed in 2001 reinforced the right of individual countries to implement these safeguards.

Challenging the public health safeguards in the Indian Law by Novartis will affect the access to medicines in developing countries when the TRIPS agreement by itself has made it difficult for India to produce affordable medicines.

The Indian Network for People with HIV/AIDS (INP+), the People's Health Movement, the Centre for Trade and Development (Centad), the international medical humanitarian organisation Mèdecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF) have all expressed their protest on the lawsuit. They have opposed patent applications for crucial AIDS drugs that they need to be able to access at affordable prices. The survival of these organizations and their effort to fight AIDS all depend greatly on winning these patent oppositions.

Widespread protests forced the Novartis to abandon a similar legal action agains the South African government in 2001.

Please join these efforts to get Novartis to back off from India.