Indian committee advocates compulsory licensing and price caps

Indian pharmaceutical companies should be encouraged to grant compulsory licences and prices of some patented medicines should be capped, an Indian government panel has said.

The panel made the recommendations among a series of others in a report, according to  The Times of India.

The unnamed panel was formed by the country’s Department of Pharmaceuticals to “suggest ways and means to fix the prices of patented drugs” in India.

Multinational companies which sell patented drugs in India have been strongly opposed to a price cap and compulsory licensing.

A compulsory licence was first granted in the country in 2012, to Natco Pharma, a generic drug company. It applied to sorafenib tosylate, a life-extending cancer drug developed and patented by German company Bayer.

The drug, which is sold under the trade name Nexavar, is used for the treatment of advanced-stage kidney and liver cancer.

Bayer criticised the decision and said the compulsory licence was unnecessary.

“The challenges faced by the Indian healthcare system have little or nothing to do with patents on pharmaceutical products as all products on India’s essential drug list are not patented,” it said at the time.

According to The Times of India, the Indian pharmaceutical market has an annual turnover of approximately Rs 2.3 lakh crore ($32.3 billion), with 30% of this coming from the sale of patented drugs.

The panel placed an emphasis on the prices of patented anti-cancer and antifungal drugs, which it said are especially expensive.

It also called for the price of patented anti-diabetes drugs to be moderated and said that patent owners should be “encouraged” to give voluntary licences to other pharmaceutical companies.

Additionally, it said the government should enter into negotiations with patent owners to obtain drugs at lower prices for public healthcare systems, The Times of India reported.

“It is important to put in place an effective mechanism to regulate the prices of patented medicines in India,” the report said.

The committee also suggested that the lowest purchasing power parity-adjusted price anywhere in the world should be the ceiling price applicable in India. This would ensure that Indian patients get the lowest price possible for a patented medicine, it said.

Did you enjoy reading this story?  Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories sent like this straight to your inbox.