A Just Order

The Supreme Court rejecting a plea to grant patent protection for Glivec a cancer fighting drug from Novartis is a landmark and will set a precedent against the practice of "evergreening" a strategy through which drug manufacturers introduce modifications of drugs to extent the 5 year patents on them. Thus other "evergreen" patent applications could be rejected citing this judgment., helping to keep many life saving drugs out of the patent regime.

The decision affirms the idea that a patent regime loses its social relevance when a drug is priced beyond the reach of the vast majority of a countries people. The "evergreened" medicines is an irony, because making additional copies of a drug ios not expensive. On the other hand cost control and dispensing of essential medications in government run healthfacilities is affected, because many states have no centralised procurement system.
Less than 10% of medicines sold in India are under patent, while vast majority are branded generics. The court order should prompt producers of pateneted drugs to move towards liberal licensing and low cost manufacture in India.
It is a matter of concern that atleast a dozen pharmaceutical innovations used in the treatment of cancer, HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B and C are not affordable to even the upper middle classes and impossible to access for the poor.

There are evidence to show that major pharma companies recover more than the cost of innovation of a drug in a single year from the United States market alone. Governments with vast populations that are denied access to medicines due to economic reasons can justifiably use unilateral price control mechanisms.