German drug major Bayer's CEO Marijn Dekkers' reported comments that “We did not develop this medicine for Indians,” have come in for severe criticism from the international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
Referring to the compulsory license issued by the Indian patent office in March 2012 on Bayer's patented cancer drug Nexavar, Marijn Dekkers, the CEO of German pharma company Bayer, reportedly commented that “We did not develop this medicine for Indians,”..... “We developed it for western patients who can afford it.”
This statement sums up, in one sentence, everything that is wrong with the R&D system today; that R&D can only be rewarded by a patent and through high prices to recoup the R&D costs, and that those who can't afford to pay are basically cut out of the system, and that if diseases aren't profitable enough, there will be no R&D investments and no new drugs, the MSF in a statement said.
Challenging Dekkers' statement, the MSF said, “The Bayer CEO going on record to say that they did not develop a cancer medicine for Indians but only for ‘western patients who can afford it’ sums up everything that is wrong with the multinational pharmaceutical industry. Bayer is effectively admitting that the drugs they develop are deliberately going to be rationed to the wealthiest patients.”
This is a side-effect of the way drugs are developed today. Pharmaceutical companies are singularly focused on profit and so aggressively push for patents and high drug prices. Diseases that don’t promise a profit are neglected, and patients who can’t afford to pay are cut out of the picture. Drug companies claim to care about global health needs, but their track record says otherwise, said Dr Manica Balasegaram, executive director, MSF's Access Campaign.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. Medical innovation can be incentivised differently, and research paid for in ways that deliver drugs but without high prices that exclude millions of people from access. Instead of being part of the problem, drug companies should work to be part of the solution and change the dire state of medical research and development today,” the MSF said.
|