Wednesday 14 September 2011

Purchase of drug industry in India a danger to poor's health

Dear Friends,
                     The more and more purchase of Indian drug pharma industry by the multinationals is a real danger to the health of the poor people in Asia and Africa. More and more Indian drug industrialists are selling their drug industries for profits, which at this moment may appear to be big to them but the multinationals know how to recover it early by jacking up the prices, So the looser is the common man.
Very soon, patents of many costly medicines are going to expire and then Indian pharma industry can make their generic drugs and sell them cheaper. But if all the pharma is purchased by multinationals who is going to benefit, only those who are investing now. We must oppose this business at the cost of poor.
Also need to be opposed is the tendency of multinational patent holders to bring small alterations in the drug molecules and then say it as new drug, this is to bypass loss of patent, if the drug remains the same over the years.
All these things show that there are nexus, that do not want poor to benefit. We must unearth such nexus and bring happiness to all humanity.

Any comments?.....

1 comment:

  1. There are, however, two other ways in which the indigenous drug industry can continue to play a positive role in ensuring the availability of reasonably priced medicines. The first is by entering the production of drugs that go off patent protection because of their having crossed the period for which patent protection is valid. Domestic firms can create generic versions of these drugs that can compete with branded products to bring down prices. A large number of drugs, which are estimated to constitute a significant share of domestic drug consumption, are slated to go off patent over the coming years. So even this limited flexibility could make a significant difference.

    But here, it is feared that one aspect of the liberalised policy of the government could prove to be an impediment. In 2000, the policy with regard to foreign direct investment (FDI) in the pharmaceutical industry was liberalised. Under the new policy, FDI in the sector was brought under the “automatic route”, and the ceiling on foreign shareholding was removed allowing for foreign ownership of up to 100 per cent.

    The net result has been a spate of acquisitions of leading drug firms by foreign producers. Among the recent acquisitions by transnational firms have been the takeovers of Matrix Lab by Mylan, of Dabur Pharma by Fresenius Kabi, of Ranbaxy by Daiichi Sankyo, of Shanta Biotech by Sanofi Aventis, of Orchid Chemicals by Hospira and of Piramal Healthcare by Abbott. An overwhelming proportion of recent FDI inflows into pharmaceuticals production has been in such acquisitions rather than in greenfield projects.

    What this does is that it places domestic capacities and capabilities that could have served as competitors to foreign producers in foreign hands. Besides the fact that this would influence pricing, given the oligopolistic position and the global strategy of these firms, it could lead to a decline in the production of generics. Firms with patents for new formulations targeted at diseases that can also be treated by off-patent generics may choose, after acquisition, to hold back on the production of such generics or raise their prices to protect branded products.

    The implication of this is that with the liberalisation of FDI policy, the effort to keep medicines affordable has become even more dependent on price control.

    It is in this context that the recently released draft National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Policy, 2011, gives cause for concern. Ever since 1994, market criteria have been introduced into the drug price control policy. As of then, commodities chosen for price control were identified on the basis of the total turnover of the drug concerned in the domestic market and the share of leading producers in that market.

    http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20111202282411900.htm?mid=52

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