Developed cancer drug for 'western patients' who could afford, not 'for Indians': Bayer's CEO

[skysthelimit]

boycott this company and his products

Better idea - license all Beyer meds to Indian firms to sell at low prices globally.

 

[leebrath]

we can make our own....
our pharmacy industry is good and have required expertise....

 

[drunken-monke]

To All this hue and cry let me contribute something...
Since I am a Pharmacist (RND scientist), before putting my view in front of all, you need to understand the life cycle of Medicine... Please go through my post completely...

When a Innovator company like Bayer Pharmaceuticals start with 500/1000 chemical molecules then they end up successfully with final 1/2 molecules.. The development phase of these medicine is about 15-16 years.. More if some complex tech is involved... Clinical trials alone can be financially very painful... It requires about 1.5 to 2 billion USD for development. These medicines are then patented in US/EU/Japan.. In India Patent laws are not followed.. Compulsory licensing is done in India... The company would suffer the economic losses due to this.. remember nobody invest for charity.

About manufacturing cost- The cost include cost of Raw materials, machinery, change parts which are required for mfg and packing, Environment of manufacturing (include HEPA filters and special air conditioning. raw material and finished product quality testing can be very expensive, stability of finished product has to be tested for 3 months accelerated and 24 months for long term which is a costly affair...

medicine Invention/manufacturing is not a dhaba sort of thing which happens in domestic small scale mfg companies.. beleive me I have worked there as well.. hence if a organization gives highest quality medicine it will charge accordingly.. Just go through the article named Dirty medicine about Ranbaxy Ltd. you will come to know the reality of these generic giants...

Dirty medicine - Fortune Features

Tell me all you chair warriors, why many if not all pay highly to softwares??? Isn't that these softwares mfg cost is very low?? only cost of CD!!!! Then why you pay so much high?? Well because you pay for their intellectual efforts.. same is like here in Medicine... We pharmacist are majorly postgraduate (M.Pharm/MS/M.Tech) or doctorate (PhD) holders. Shouldn't we should get paid for our efforts??

About generics, you don't have any idea about generics in US/EU. generics should be therapeutically equivalent branded Reference listed drugs.. Do we have that system in India??? Have government done health insurance of us?? we use 1.4% of our GDP on healthcare contrary to 5% of other nations.. Dont blame pharma industries for that.. The generics marketed in India are not manufactured with cGMP norms and therapeutic value of these cheap medicine is very mediocre.

And if at all Indians and Indian govt want to bring down the cost of healthcare, should not they also bring down fees of doctors as well who charge heftily?? A general physician in cities charge 300 inr as fees and medicine sometimes is of merely 100 rupess...
Even in villages, docs charge 100 rupees as fees.. Why not question them...

If you want new gen. quality medicines, scientist need to do hard word and huge research for that... These medicine wont come for cheap.. and nobody gonna do the charity thats for sure....

Regards

Shrikant Parwate (thats me)
Project manager (regulator affairs)
Mylan Labs Ltd. Hyderabad (Mylan 2nd Largest generic org. in world)

we can make our own....
our pharmacy industry is good and have required expertise....

No we are not... We are copy paste models... Till date we Indians have not invented a single NCE (new chemical entity)

Better idea - license all Beyer meds to Indian firms to sell at low prices globally.

You can do that in India where Intellectual rights have no value. but not in US/EU and many countries where patents are respected and protected by law unlike India....

Iindia is the most unfavorable environment for innovating medicine, believe me, I am from this field..

Nexavar medicine

Liver,cancer and kidney

Patentn in india

To Bayer in 2008

Cost

2.8 lakh for a pack of 120 tablets,

Action by india , How , Why, Reason, Is its legal ?

Action

Compulsory Licence is a patent system under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) where a government allows a company to manufacture a patented drug without the consent of the innovator company.

SO ITS LEGAL as per internlational trety.

India granted its first-ever CL, allowing Natco to sell a generic version of the cancer drug at 8,800 for a month's therapy,

Royalty to Bayer

6% royalty to Bayer on the total sales.

Cost

From 2.8 Laks to Rs.8800 for same dose

Why

· Inability of Bayer

IPAB pointed out that even after obtaining patent, Bayer had not made the drug available on a large scale and at an affordable price within the stipulated time.



· Public Interest first

Is it only against BAYER.?

No.

Indian Judiciary and administrtion also went on same line on

Pfizer Inc’s cancer drug Sutent, Roche Holding AG’s hepatitis C drug Pegasys and Merck & Co’s asthma treatment aerosol suspension formulation. Another case involving drug patents is now in front of the Supreme Court, with Novartis battling against an earlier decision refusing it a patent on cancer drug Glivec.



Conclusion

IF BAYER thinks India did wrong with them.please come to SC or any international court.

Patent is important and high cost of medicine refereed to high investment in R& D.

But what the use of having Doctor next door if he can save neighbor because he is SUPER specialty doctor with USA, UK practice certification.

Doctor ultimate objective is to save life.. same goes for medicine ..

Fiancial can be work out if it can able achieve that goal first.

Cipla could able to rake huge profits by selling HIV drugs in afirca at premium cost but they did not.

Pfzier -1849,Rosche-1896,Glaxo-1180,Bayer -1863, Merck -1891, Novartis – Ciba –Cigay -1859

Are all old pharma companies so they have advantage being started before indian and other world

counterpart as most of these from USA, UK, Swizland .

Indian organization except Cipla are trying to established themselves so it will take time to develop R& D and new molecule.

Indian organizations are nothing in front of branded innovators.. apart from Sun Pharma and Dr. Reddy's Lab...

 

[drunken-monke]

Missed this one: what irked me is that you allude to Zyklon-B and Nazis because Bayern's CEO couldn't keep his mouth shut.

The rest of my comment stands: patents should be respected because they drive innovation, while other means must be found to make drugs available to poorer countries (imho, India isn't the case necessarily , if you can afford nuclear subs, you can also afford to subsidize some drugs).

I won;t address the rest since you are just trying to undermine the amount of money & work involved in drug development, albeit the point of maximized profits is true, which is to be expected from a firm.

Sure they don't understand your and mine point.. Anything novel has to be funded and the people involved with it has to be paid with...

BLEED 'Em



And who told you we don't? India is emerging as one of the largest hubs of medical research.

You don't understand his point... The real thing is, India is largest hub for generic medicine research.... not for innovation... one 2 NCE are in pipeline of whole Indian drug industry... Don't spread lies like congress...

boycott this company and his products

Indian market does not contribute much to bayers revenue.. It is less than 4 % of its total revenue...

i agree with u.....
just hate it whn businessmen(n most of society)cries foul whn we docs get greedy....

Docs are always greedy.. Go through my previous post

these pharma companies have to apply for patents in our country too...if for some reason govt rejects it...
patent in usa doesnt count


sirjee ham kya kamathe hai....padke padke aadha life span katham hojatha hai..

These companies have applied in India for patents, but the laws and systems here are really unfavorable... Patents are not granted/cleared for years and years.. whats the point in that?

 

[fsayed]

Sure they don't understand your and mine point.. Anything novel has to be funded and the people involved with it has to be paid with...


You don't understand his point... The real thing is, India is largest hub for generic medicine research.... not for innovation... one 2 NCE are in pipeline of whole Indian drug industry... Don't spread lies like congress...


Indian market does not contribute much to bayers revenue.. It is less than 4 % of its total revenue...


Docs are always greedy.. Go through my previous post


These companies have applied in India for patents, but the laws and systems here are really unfavorable... Patents are not granted/cleared for years and years.. whats the point in that?

boycott that 4% percent

 

[drunken-monke]

There is an important distinction here that people need to keep in mind. the CEO is pissed not that India refuses to acknowledge patent rights rather that he cannot keep his patent in perpetuity.

an important distinction that gets lost in the conversation. sure you have your patent rights but when they expire , you cannot tweak .00000000000001% of it and ask for another 30 years of exclusivity.

secondly these pharma's cost americans to pay 10000000X more because of R&D costs, even after they recover such costs. these companies make no effort to ever reduce the prices and that is why we have the most expensive healthcare system in the world. What India does is not ONLY being adopted by other countries but it is high time america does too.

You are partially right about rnd and revenue after that... However once the patent is expired, the cost erosion of medicine is about 80-90%. Even the cost of generic medicine in US/EU is 10 times more than that if branded medicine in India..

What India is doing is violating the patent before the patent expires. India is a international criminal entity if this persist.

I agree on this...

boycott that 4% percent

Doesn't make a difference to them...

Kick Bayer out of India

We Indians require Bayer more than they require us...

Not required. Regulation is any day a better option.

So bring regulations in India na???

I really support the development of generic drugs for saving lives. However we must ask , when was the last time an Indian company(or chinese/african etc) made a drug from scratch rather than making generics, or tweaking ( changing a few atoms and molecules) here and there of a tested drug and manufacturing it? Maybe if we spend on R&D and make new drugs available to the world at lower prices, we would have a much higher moral ground justifying making these generics.

Never done that yet... They are trying may take 10 more years... but not yet.... you are correct...

What India is doing is violating the patent before the patent expires. India is a international criminal entity if this persist.

yes and they say, its compulsory licensing... Indians orgs dont give a $h|t for innovation...

As already mentioned earlier in this thread, the companies indulge in evergreening and they have the politicians in their pocket.

So millions of poor people must die so that some of these greedy corporates can make their super profits.

PS: There are people in USA itself who can see that they have much poorer outcomes than many other countries that spend much less on heath care on a per capita basis and have far more superior outcomes.

And USA is the biggest laboratory for these pharma companies predatory pricing.

Its not as if I am against the pharma companies but against the specific practices that are being allowed by the Western governments in violation of all ethical norms.

Even in India, many doctors recommend specific (and much costlier) drugs when far cheaper alternatives exist. Experiments in some states to provide healthcare using generics has produced great results.

I agree with some part of your post... However for latter part of you post please go through this act..

Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[drunken-monke]

fogot to add...most of the generic drugs are based on expired patents not all

Nope... All generics are based on the expired exclusivity.. once NCE patent gets expired there might few other patents, but if exclusivity is expired on can launch generic version

Not only for Indians, but for people around the world who cannot afford the drug.

Indian generics played a key role in decrease in AIDS across the world.

On topic...The CEO's comment was racial.

Nope... PEPFAR (presidents emergency plan for anti retrovials)... go through this term.. USA buys these medicine and supply these to Africa... These medicine have high quality unlike which are supplied directly to these nations from India...

im a doctor sir, for me or for that matter any doctor wouldn't want the patient( irrespective of nationalities) to die bcos of not being able to afford the drug...

Why not ask doctors first to reduce the fees allover India??? That would bring down cost of healthcare....

It's a matter of plain economics.

Drug companies invest billions into R&D and into decades of clinical trials (despite uninformed claims by random people on forums). I know, because I used to work for Bristol-Myers Squibb in the US. These companies need to recoup their costs, amortize them over failed projects, and make a profit. That's how business works, and that's why new medicines come from the evil capitalist West. There is no "committee of comrades" allocating development funds from an international pool and apportioning benefits "to each according to his need".

If drug companies sell X amount to Western customers at price Y, they will generate revenue X*Y.
If they can sell an additional amount A to developing countries at price B, they will generate additional revenue A*B.
So, their total revenue R = X*Y + A*B.

Now, assuming X and R remain constant, I will leave it for you to see how Y depends on A and B.

Exactly the way innovators act.. you are absolutely correct...

 

[drunken-monke]

I know this is old news but i think this is relevant to this tread and worth mentioning.

Increasing number of countries adopting Indian IP laws for drug manufacturing​

Cphi worldwide 2012 - News Details

And what is the market size of these nations apart from China.....

I don't think the (comparatively) poorly paid, hard working researchers were doing it for monopoly profits for themselves or for some private companies. Their output is public good being publicly funded.



Its is unfortunate that greed of these companies and executives is allowed to be expressed in pious terms and is taken as truth.

Its not about greed... Its about making way for new inventions.. You can't reply on current drugs, need to keep on inventing and thus need revenue....

 

[Guynextdoor2]

Sure they don't understand your and mine point.. Anything novel has to be funded and the people involved with it has to be paid with...


You don't understand his point... The real thing is, India is largest hub for generic medicine research.... not for innovation... one 2 NCE are in pipeline of whole Indian drug industry... Don't spread lies like congress...


Indian market does not contribute much to bayers revenue.. It is less than 4 % of its total revenue...


Docs are always greedy.. Go through my previous post


These companies have applied in India for patents, but the laws and systems here are really unfavorable... Patents are not granted/cleared for years and years.. whats the point in that?

Don't dance around thread like drunken monkey

 

[halupridol]

@drunken-monke
well i don't know much about the technicalities of pharma industry,,,,so cant comment.
but about docs being greedy.....mehhh..
how many doctors r in India n how many charge ₹300 per visit??....
how much do u think is the pay of a doctor in govt. setup???
i wont even mention the working condition,workload or duty hours......pretty easy to blame us for everythng that is wrong with the health sector ain't it...,,.
no surprises that no. students opting for mbbs is decreasing.....
@gslv yeh naya aamirkhan aaya hai....

 

[Imran Khan]

everything is for sale here its fuckedup wrld

 

[Commander T]

fcuk Germany.. care for life .. not for money A$$ hole .... We dont care

World reads your comment like this "Fcuk, Germany care for life, not for money A$$ hole .... We dont care" ......and that,s the truth

 

[drunken-monke]

@drunken-monke
well i don't know much about the technicalities of pharma industry,,,,so cant comment.
but about docs being greedy.....mehhh..
how many doctors r in India n how many charge ₹300 per visit??....
how much do u think is the pay of a doctor in govt. setup???
i wont even mention the working condition,workload or duty hours......pretty easy to blame us for everythng that is wrong with the health sector ain't it...,,.
no surprises that no. students opting for mbbs is decreasing.....
@gslv yeh naya aamirkhan aaya hai....

You have not been recently to private docs for check up... thats why!!!!

Don't dance around thread like drunken monkey

You dont have anything sane to argue with me.. Am the expert on the matter. your frustration shows in your post...

 

[halupridol]

You have not been recently to private docs for check up... thats why!!!!

i am a doctor.....n i wud suggest that u visit govt. Hospitals instead of visiting private practitioners whom u think overcharge...
n please refrain from commenting on things that u r not aware of....

 

[drunken-monke]

i am a doctor.....n i wud suggest that u visit govt. Hospitals instead of visiting private practitioners whom u think overcharge...
n please refrain from commenting on things that u r not aware of....

The time and formalities required at government hospitals are beyond affording limits of a working person like me.... Not to mention that I am speculative about their ability....
You are quoting about yourself as being an example where you are a government employee.. but be informed that Pharma industries are not part of government..
Please refrain from posting anything related to pharma world which you are not aware of... Whatever you are sure about us, you can surely post the same....