The Hindu Business Line : Research-oriented cos may stay away: Novartis

Mumbai, Aug.6 Clearly disappointed,” was what Novartis India’s Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Ranjit Shahani, had to say in reaction to the Madras High Court’s judgment that dismissed the case regarding its cancer drug, Glivec.

Expressing his company’s disagreement with the ruling, Mr Shahani told Business Line that the judgment would discourage research-oriented companies from investing in India.

However, he added, the company was not likely to appeal to the Supreme Court, even as the full text of the Court decision was awaited.

Glivec had been at the heart of the high-profile case, when the company’s patent application was rejected by the Indian Patent Office in January 2006.

The company had approached the Madras High Court, challenging separately the rejection of its application and contesting the parameters that led to the rejection, including Section 3 (d) of the Patents Act 1970 as amended by the Patents (Amendment) Act 2005.

The parameter does not recognise an incremental development on a known substance, unless it significantly improves the efficacy of the substance.

The Court deferred to the WTO forum in Geneva the question of whether India’s patent law was compliant with international trade and intellectual property related laws, Novartis said.

But whether Novartis will push the envelope still further and mobilise the Swiss Government to take India to the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body for being non-compliant, remains to be seen, said a pharma industry representative.

Meanwhile, Mr Shahani reiterated his company’s stand on the Glivec patient assistance programme.

Patients who cannot afford the drug or do not get reimbursement will continue be given the medicine free, he said.

The company’s assistance programme has given the medicine free to about 7,500 patients locally, at a cost of $500 million (about Rs 2,000 crore) to the company.

A separate Novartis case is pending at the recently formed Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), where the board is looking into the rejection of its patent application on Glivec early last year.

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