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Your letters: Thumbs up to generic medicine

A recent case saw Swiss giant Novartis lose a case at the Indian Supreme Court regarding the patent of its cancer drug, Gleevec

The Jakarta Post
Wed, May 8, 2013 Published on May. 8, 2013 Published on 2013-05-08T11:51:06+07:00

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recent case saw Swiss giant Novartis lose a case at the Indian Supreme Court regarding the patent of its cancer drug, Gleevec. It had applied for the patent in 2006 and has been fighting it ever since. It claimed it should have been given the patent since its medicine was a new invention and all new inventions deserve a patent of around 20 years. They said that the new medicine is 30 percent easier to absorb and as such cannot be compared to its predecessor.

This company'€™s product costs about 28 times more than a generic substitute for a year'€™s treatment. Yet, the company refused to agree with the Court'€™s decision that the medicine was too expensive for poor people. Novartis defended by saying that it was completely in support of helping the poor in every way possible. It claimed that since the launch of its new program in 2002, it provided 95 percent of patients, numbering 16,000 people, with the Gleevec medicine free of charge. They said they had provided the medicine, amounting to nearly US$1.7 billion, free of charge in India.

This contentious case was well received by poor patients around the globe who rely on generic medicines for their treatment. Generic medicines are those medicines which have almost the same composition as the original medicines and have the same active ingredient. They resemble the original medicine in terms of dosage, safety, strength, the way it works and most importantly, quality. The decision is one that has global perspective, thanks to the huge exporter of medicines India already is. India exports US$10 billion worth of generic medicines each year. Along with China, it accounts for 80 percent of all active ingredients found in drugs in the US.

There are multitudinous cases of killer diseases in our world. It is not only the rich who fall ill. Rather on the contrary, more and more poor people are exposed to such heinous diseases. In such cases, a decision passed by the Indian Supreme Court is completely correct and serves as a path on which poor people can walk and reach the end of the path to a healthy life. Many people believe in the fallacy that generic medicines are lower in quality and have side-effects on the body. They cost a fraction of the original medicine since they are not put through strenuous tests like the original medicines, the simple reason being that the same product is already doing well on the market.

Avoiding telecasting high-budget advertorials also saves a huge chunk of the cost. We do not need to fear generic versions since they are no less than twins of their predecessors.

In fact, many generic medicines are made in the same as the originals. When it comes to the pricing, the difference is staggering. On average, generic medicines cost 80-85 percent less than the original.

We must fully support the use of this type of medicines since they are the same in effect but do not empty your pocket as much as others. In 1984, generic medicines accounted for not more than 19 percent of all medicines in the US.

Today, they account for more than 54 percent of market sale. If such an advanced nation can be so dependent on this unique invention, we don'€™t need to talk about what the need of the developing world is.

If there is something that we need now, then that is awakening. We must strive to ameliorate the poor plight of patients around the globe by expanding our horizons.

We must subjugate the activities of those people who are blind against the suffering of the majority of patients. We must disseminate knowledge on the correct story behind the evolution of
generic drugs.

We must support all such good causes for which someone is protesting on the streets now while you are reading this article. If we succeed in doing so, we will be blessed by the countless people who were suffering from that problem before a solution was brought into action.

Sahil Nandal

Purwakarta, West Java

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