Anti-cancer drug becomes cheaper – Daily News & Analysis

Posted by rob on January 31, 2006 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

Tuesday, January 31, 2006 01:06 IST

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MUMBAI: It promises to be a boon for leukaemia patients as well as others looking for affordable anti-cancer drugs.

Gleevec, a drug used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML, blood cancer), will no longer be the exclusive property of Novartis AG, according to a recent ruling of the patents controller, Chennai.

The price of the drug had escalated from Rs10,000 to Rs1.2 lakh per bottle of 90 tablets after the Centre gave Novartis exclusive marketing rights for the drug.

This forced many of the 30,000 or so CML patients in the country to stop using it.
The patents controller, in his ruling, said Gleevec contains a beta crystalline form of the compound imatinib meyslate.

Arguing that the beta derivative does not show any significant improvement in efficacy over the original substance, the controller denied Novartis the patent.

The Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA), a city-based NGO, had contested Novartis’s application for the patent on imatinib meyslate.

While Novartis could sell Gleevec at Rs1.2 lakh a bottle, nine other manufacturers of imatinib meyslate, the drug’s generic version priced between Rs9,000 and Rs12,000 per bottle, were barred from producing it by a court injunction, forcing thousands of patients to resort to older drugs like Hydrea.

The ruling has brought relief to the NGO, which has 300 patients on the waiting list.
“It is a big victory for our patients, most of whom cannot afford these expensive drugs,” said YK Sapru, CPAA chairman. “We do provide drugs free of cost, but for how long can we do so with such prices?”

This is just the first step towards ensuring justice for patients, said Anand Grover, project director, Lawyer’s Collective, which represented the CPAA. “Drug control committees can further reduce the price of the generic version of Gleevec.”

The CPAA will now approach the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority to make drugs containing imatinib mesylate affordable
DNA – Mumbai – Anti-cancer drug becomes cheaper – Daily News & Analysis