April 2, 2013

The Indian supreme court ruled against Novartis in its case to extend the patent of its cancer drug. Activists argue that the ruling will open the door for more generic drugs. From the AP:

Novartis had argued that it needed a patent to protect its investment in the cancer drug Glivec, while activists said the company was trying to use a loophole to make more money out of a drug that did not have a patent. The decision has global significance since India’s $26 billion generic drug industry supplies much of the cheap medicine used in the developing world.

Pratibha Singh, a lawyer for the Indian generic drug manufacturer Cipla, which makes a version of Glivec for less than a tenth of the original drug’s selling price, said the ruling sets a precedent that will prevent international pharmaceutical companies from obtaining fresh patents in India on updated versions of existing drugs.

The court ruled that a patent could only be given to a new drug, she told reporters outside the court.

“Patents will be given only for genuine inventions, and repetitive patents will not be given for minor tweaks to an existing drug,” Singh said.

Novartis did not immediately return calls for comment. It has previously said that patent protection is crucial to fostering new drug research and innovation and has suggested that Indians could be denied access to its new medicines if it believes its patents won’t be protected.

“Knowing we can rely on patents in India benefits government, industry and patients because research-based organizations will know if investing in the development of better medicines for India is a viable long-term option,” the company said in statement it sent to The Associated Press late last year.

The Swiss pharmaceutical giant has fought a legal battle in India since 2006 to patent a new version of Glivec, which is mainly used to treat leukemia and is known as Gleevec outside India and Europe. The earlier version of Glivec did not have a patent, because it was introduced into India before the country adopted its first patent law in 2005.

India’s patent office rejected the company’s patent application, arguing the drug was not a new medicine but an amended version of its earlier product. The patent authority cited a provision in the 2005 patent law aimed at preventing companies from getting fresh patents for making only minor changes to existing medicines — a practice known as “evergreening.”

Novartis appealed, arguing the drug was a more easily absorbed version of Glivec and that it qualified for a patent.

April 1, 2013

An estimated 240,000 children were not reached by a recent UN-backed polio vaccine campaign due to safety concerns along the tribal regions. AP reports:

Dr. Nima Saeed Abid, the acting WHO chief in Pakistan, said health workers have not been able to immunize children in the North and South Waziristan regions – Taliban strongholds – since July 2012.

Pakistan is one of the few remaining countries, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, where polio is rampant. As many as 58 cases were reported in Pakistan in 2012, down from 198 in 2011.

He said polio transmission is now concentrated in core endemic areas – central Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the Federally Administered Tribal Regions or FATA, parts of Karachi, Quetta and nearby Killa Abdullah and Pishin districts in south western Baluchistan province.

Abid said there have so far been five polio cases reported this year. These cases were reported from Karachi in Sindh province, Bannu and Malakand and Mardan in KPK province and from Mianwali in central Punjab province, added Abid, the acting WHO chief in Pakistan.

Abid said that 15 health workers have been killed in the anti-polio campaign in Pakistan since July 2012. Pakistani militant groups oppose the vaccinations and accuse the workers of spying for Washington.

March 29, 2013

Parents and officials are going to great lengths to immunize children after militants imposed a ban on polio vaccinations in Pakistan’s restive North Waziristan. From IRIN:

The government is trying a carrot-and-stick approach to get the ban reversed.

“We are making what efforts we can to bring [the ban] to an end, so the anti-polio campaign can resume,” said Fawad Khan, health director at the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) Secretariat in Peshawar.

Nisar told IRIN that the Governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province, officials at the FATA Secretariat and the political agent – a representative of the federal government – in North Waziristan were “all attempting to talk to tribal elders and sort out matters so anti-polio drives could resume.”

In addition to the negotiations, they are also using colonial-era legislation to impose collective punishment on the areas.

In December 2012, using powers available to him under the Frontier Crimes Regulation of 1901, the political agent for North Waziristan put in place measures that included denying tribal people of North Waziristan passports, national identity cards and other official documentation if community leaders don’t overturn the ban.

A small honorarium to tribal elders was also stopped and development work in some areas has been suspended.

The steps were taken after the Wazir and Dawar tribes declined to back the anti-polio programme, Political Agent Siraj Ahmed Khan said.

Militants had also imposed a polio vaccination ban in South Waziristan but Nisar said this had since been “somewhat relaxed.”

A doctor, who asked not to be identified, at the hospital in Wana, the administrative centre of South Waziristan, told IRIN, “Generally people are allowed to bring people into the hospital to receive anti-polio drops, but teams are not permitted to move in the field to deliver them.”

So far, the government’s tactics in North Wazirstan have not led to a relaxation of the unofficial community ban.

March 28, 2013

Reports of looting in the Central African Republic following the coup by rebels which led the president to flee to Cameroon late last week. From the AP:

Aid groups and the international community on Tuesday condemned widespread looting in Central African Republic’s capital, saying that even hospitals had been robbed in the aftermath of a weekend coup that ousted the president of a decade.

Efforts to restore order to Bangui, a city of 700,000, came as a rebel leader declared himself the new president and announced he would stay in power for three years.

Continuing violence in Central African Republic was preventing critically wounded patients from getting the help they needed, said the French medical aid group, Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders.

“MSF condemns the looting and robberies of our facilities and reminds all parties that medical personnel must be respected and protected and must be granted all available help in the performance of their duties,” said Serge St. Louis, MSF head of mission in Bangui.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky also said Tuesday that “widespread looting is continuing, including of one pediatric hospital.”

More than 1,000 armed rebels from the alliance known as Seleka attacked the capital on Saturday, forcing longtime President Francois Bozize into exile in neighboring Cameroon. The fierce fighting left at least 13 South African soldiers dead and an untold number of civilian casualties.

It was the latest political turmoil to destabilize Central African Republic, a country where leaders since independence from France in 1960 have come to power or been ousted in a series of coups and rebellions.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell sharply criticized the “illegitimate seizure of power.”

“We strongly condemn these actions,” Ventrell told reporters. “The Seleka leadership must account for its trail of destruction.”