Middle-income countries flex muscles to overcome patents in face of unaffordable drug prices

Middle-income countries are increasingly taking measures to overcome the patents that price drugs out of reach, according to a new report released last week by the international medical humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), titled Untangling the web of antiretroviral price reductions.

In March, India for the first time issued a compulsory license to override a drug patent on the cancer drug sorafenib tosylate, produced by Germany’s Bayer. The move sets an important precedent for access to ARVs that are unaffordable. China has also just confirmed its mechanism to override patents, MSF noted.

“Our report shows that the newest HIV drugs are now patented in India, the pharmacy of the developing world, and this blocks the production of more affordable generic versions that we need for some of our patients,” said Nathan Ford, medical director of MSF’s Access Campaign. “The power balance has to change as developing countries begin to make use of their rights to overcome patents when monopoly sellers price their drugs out of reach. For this reason, we fully support countries like India that are using their new patent laws to deal with monopoly abuses. If high prices prevent access to life-saving medicines, they override them,” he warned.