Medical students stage protest against Big Pharma in run up to world AIDS day
Written by Dave Biles, over 5 years ago | Permalink | Branch: Bristol | Project: Global Health Advocacy Project | Campaign: PharmAware
A mini hospital ward appeared in Bristol city centre last week as Bristol medical students dressed as doctors and patients in beds faced ‘drug company representatives’ to stage a protest against “Profit Pills”
Patients in hospital beds cried out in desperation as they were diagnosed “too poor to pay" sine the drugs they needed were priced way out of their reach.
The students were calling for the drug company Novartis to stop challenging Indian Patent Law in the courts.
If Novartis win, it will limit India’s ability to produce and export cheaper drugs, including Anti-Retro Virals, to other developing countries.
In 2005, cancer patients groups in India used intellectual property law to stop a patent application by Novartis for its anti cancer drug, Glivec. This meant that Indian companies could continue making generic versions of Glivec at £1,400 per year, as opposed to the Novartis monopoly priced version of the same drug for sale at more than £14,000 per year.
However Novartis recently appealed the court’s decision in a direct challenge to India’s right to interpret the TRIPS Agreement to protect public health. If Novartis is successful, it could jeopardise India’s generic medicines export industry. Currently India’s 67% of inexpensive medicines export goes to developing countries.
The event was covered by local radio and will be in the local student press soon.
The students got involved though the Global Health Advocacy Project and Pharmaware Medsin groups, and worked alongside Oxfam.
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See Oxfam's coverge of the event in their "activist" magazine
See photos here
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