Why India’s Novartis ruling is good for innovation
Today’s news that the Indian supreme court has effectively denied the Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis the patent protection for its ‘new’ blood cancer drug Glivec (Gleevec in North America) has been discussed controversially in the media. On the one hand, commentators sympathetic to the industry have pointed out that without patent protection a publicly owned company loses its incentive to develop new drugs. Pharmaceutical innovation, so the argument goes, is driven by the hope of future returns. Since development of new drugs is very costly, time consuming and competitive, companies can hardly justify investments when rulings such as today's kill their hopes of recouping the costs through future sales. In short, the Indian ruling " will hinder medical progress" ( Novartis press release) and thus kills innovation. On the other hand, activists and other voices critical of the industry argue that this is a win for all those that have the interest of poo...