Recent free trade negotiations, including the World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) are restricting the ability of Indian generic drug manufacturers in India to compete with innovative pharmaceutical companies in the European Union. Currently, India has a booming business in generic drug production; for example, nearly 80% of generic antiretroviral medications to treat HIV/AIDS are produced in India. This could raise the cost of these drugs substantially, and limit the ability of groups such as UNITAID (a multi-national drug purchasing organization) to distribute medications fighting tuberculosis, malaria, and AIDS to people in developing nations.
Until recently, drug patents were virtually unenforceable in India, allowing generic drug production to flourish there even when intellectual property laws prohibited production in most other countries. The substantially lower cost of generic production has dropped the price of a typical antiretroviral course to $100 from over $10,000. Because of the rapidly mutating nature of HIV, antiretrovirals developed two years ago may no longer treat HIV today. Restricting the ability of Indian manufacturers to cheaply produce antiretrovirals could have a profound impact on the lives of people around the world.
This is a scary thing to me because it hits so close to home. As an epileptic, the cost of prescription drugs is very important in my life. I can tell you that when I order them through Canada my drugs are about 1/7th the price! I have always wondered if IPRs were a good enough reason to block drugs that save lives. I know this is a complicated matter, but shouldn't our overall well being be more important that Phizer's R&D budget?
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