Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11308

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Publication type: news

Novartis to switch R&D investments away from India after Glivec ruling - CEO
Forbes.com 2007 Aug 22
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2007/08/22/afx4042390.html

Full text:

LONDON (Thomson Financial) – Novartis is to switch hundreds of millions of dollars in planned investments from India in the next few years in response to a court ruling that weakens intellectual property rights on new medicines, the Financial Times reported.

Commenting after an Indian appeal court ruled against a patent claim by the Swiss pharmaceutical group, CEO Daniel Vasella told the newspaper that ‘concrete plans’ for investments in research in India will now go elsewhere instead.

‘We will invest more in countries where we have protection,’ he said, without specifying further.

Novartis had appealed against an earlier Indian ruling to reject patents on its leukaemia drug Glivec. The court argued that incremental innovation did not qualify it as a new chemical entity justifying protection.