Will India hold on to its status as 'Pharmacy of the developing world'?

2

Tweet

On a day when television channels stayed focused on the fallout of the ongoing tussle between the Army Chief and the Government, hundreds of people gathered at the hallowed ground for protests in Delhi to raise an alarm about an issue of far more importance than the putative age of the General. India and the European Union (EU) are inching toward a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that could potentially undermine India's current status as the 'pharmacy of the developing world'.

The current ongoing talks are supposed to be in an 'advanced stage' and could have far reaching consequences as the EU is India's biggest trading partner, accounting for 14 per cent of India's foreign trade. The talks have been on since 2007 but mired in differences over a number of issues, the latest being India's defiance in maintaining trade ties with the West's latest bête noire, Iran.

But the protesters were gathered on a wintry morning to drive home the point, yet again, that India should, at any cost, not abdicate its unique status as the largest producer of generic essential medicines, so crucial to keeping alive millions of HIV/AIDs patients, not just in India but across the developing world. Organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam fear that provisions in the FTA could sound the death knell for access to cheap generic drugs for patients who need them the most.

Up until year 2000, drugs for HIV/AIDS were mostly patented and cost more than $10,000 per patient per year. But generic pharmaceuticals in India brought down the price of first-line HIV drugs to less than $150 a year. This was possible because of the competition among the generic producers and the fact that these drugs were outside of the patent net. These generic producers, in fact, contribute to more than 80 per cent of the HIV medicines used to treat 6.6 million people in developing countries and 90 per cent of paediatric HIV medicines are produced in India. This is now being severely challenged under the Intellectual Property rules under the FTA.

One insidious fallout of the new rules could mean that generic drugs manufactured in India will not be allowed to be exported to other developing countries as pharmaceutical companies could claim infringement of a patent. This would be a huge blow for HIV patients in poor countries now dependent on access to affordable, life-saving medicines from India. Similarly another debilitating rule could mean that even if the Indian government were to override a patent when it felt that an essential drug should be made available cheap to its public, pharmaceutical companies could potentially sue the State.

Other provisions equally amount to whittling down the generic production of life-saving drugs. All of this will hit the capacity of UN agencies and other organizations that are massively dependent on the generic medicines from India to treat millions of poor patients across the developing world.

India has not really been a shining example when it comes to providing health care for its most vulnerable and marginalised citizenry. On the one hand, the country is known as a destination for medical tourism providing cutting edge technology to those who can afford it. Yet, it carries also the tag for some shameful statistics. Hundreds of thousands of India's most vulnerable - mothers and children below five years - are dying because they cannot access basic health care.

Millions of Indians are being pushed below the poverty line as they spend over 70 per cent of their income on medicines and healthcare. These are not statistics to be proud of. These are not statistics that can be brushed aside in the race to strengthen trade ties with the EU. India's commitment to providing universal health care is yet a vision far from turning into reality. It also shows little signs of increasing public spending on health, now a piffling 1.2 per cent of the GDP.

India is extremely thin-skinned when it comes to criticism of welfare spending and how it takes care of its poor, especially if the criticism is from outside the country. Take the recent posturing over British aid. The country wants to be seen as a world player and treated with respect. Nothing wrong with that but here's a clear chance for it to display statesmanship.

Here's a chance when India can flex its growing world power muscle to protect its generic pharmaceutical industry and safeguard the interests of millions of poor people, not only within its borders but elsewhere.

In the current talks with the EU, India would do well to balance commercial interests with its obligation to protect the poor. Hopefully, it will not barter away its redeeming status as the pharmacy of the developing world.