Photo by Janet Silvera
Patented drug Norvasc and the generic brand Amlocor for treating high blood pressure.
Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
JAMAICAN pharmaceutical company, Indies Pharma, is gearing up for a court battle with international drug-manufacturing giant, Pfizer-USA, over local distribution of hypertension medication used by thousands of Jamaicans living with the debilitating illness.
Because of a 2005 court injunction gran-ting Pfizer-USA the exclusive licence to sell its patented brand Norvasc in Jamaica, local pharmaceutical companies, like Indies Pharma, Medimpex and Lasco, have been barred from selling their generic brands, which are considerably cheaper.
But, two weeks ago, the Montego Bay-based Indies Pharma placed its generic drug Amlocor (amlodipine) on the market, sparking a legal battle with Pfizer-USA.
Within days, Dr Guna Muppuri, managing director of Indies Pharma, received a warning letter from Pfizer's lawyers in New York reminding him that it was their policy to defend their patent rights against infringement wherever encountered.
The letter read: " ... We kindly request your assistance to ensure that no generic version of amlodipine besylate be distributed, sold or offered for sale in Jamaica."
It was signed by Robert A. Vargas, Pfizer's senior corporate counsel.
Affordable drug
Defending the move to sell the cheaper generic amlodipine, Muppuri told The Sunday Gleaner that Amlocor (amlodipine) is the most affordable drug that can help hypertension patients.
"It is the only (affordable) drug that can tame the most ferocious and uncontrollable hypertension, protecting patients from the devastating complications of severe congestive heart failure, stroke, renal failure and many other vascular complications due to hypertension.
"Ninety-five per cent of our patients cannot afford the patented drug," says Muppuri. "There are too many people with severe hypertension ending up with heart attacks and strokes, and if we can give this drug to the public at under $50 or $100 per month of supply under the NHF (National Health Fund), then it is really a great boost to people and will save the country spending over $15 million dollars a month."
Law is binding
However, Pfizer-USA contends that the patent, which is binding until 2016, protects them under Jamaican law. When the patent expires, Pfizer would have had a 24-year run in Jamaica.
Still up in arms from the 2005 injunction, Medimpex and Lasco, local pharmaceutical companies, will again have the ear of the judges in the Supreme Court on April 27.
Four years ago, their products (the generic amlodipine) were removed from pharmacy shelves. If they fail to prove their case, they could be forced to wait another seven years.
Of note is the fact that the patent has expired in the rest of the world, including the US, since 2008, yet not in Jamaica, an issue Muppuri is arguing.
"Section 29 of the patent law states that once a patent is granted for a product in Jamaica, if that patent expires in the rest of the world, then the Jamaican patent automatically expires. This is one of the main reasons I am waging a war against Pfizer," he told The Sunday Gleaner.
But assistant patent officer in Jamaica's Intellectual Property Office, Beverly Brown, said when the patent was granted to Pfizer, her office was not aware that it had expired in other countries.
"And the law is what governs us," she emphasised.
POOR PEOPLE are needlessly dying because drug companies and the governments of rich countries are blocking the developing world from obtaining affordable medicines, a report says recently.
Five years to the day after the Doha declaration - a ground-breaking deal to give poor countries access to cheap drugs - was signed at the World Trade Organisation, Oxfam says things are worse.
The charity accuses the US, which champions the interests of its giant pharmaceutical companies, of bullying developing countries into not using the measures in the Doha declaration, and the European Union of standing by and doing nothing.
Preserving monopolies
Doha technically allows poor countries to buy cheap copies of desperately needed drugs, but the US is accused of trying to prevent countries, such as Thailand and India, which have manufacturing capacity, from making and selling cheap generic versions so as to preserve the monopolies of the drug giants.
Indian generics firms make most of the cheap drug cocktails that are now being rolled out to people with HIV in Africa and are keeping more than a million people alive. Drug firms in developed countries are also fighting to have patents observed. Pfizer is challenging the Philippines government in a bid to extend its monopoly on Norvasc, a blood pressure drug.
Reprinted in part from the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom on Tuesday, November 14, 2006. The article is based on an Oxfam report.