The Supreme Court today dismissed a special leave petition (SLP) filed by multinational drug major Hoffman-La Roche challenging a Delhi High court order of April that allowed domestic drug major Cipla to sell a generic version of lung cancer drug Tarceva (erlotinib) in India.
Sources said the division bench of Supreme Court consisting of Justice Dalvir Bhandari and Justice M K Sharma dismissed the petition and suggested expediting the patent infringement case on the drug in the Delhi High Court.
Roche was awarded a product patent for the drug, which it sells as Tarceva in India, in 2006. Cipla launched its generic version Erlocip in India in January last year. Immediately, Roche filed an infringement lawsuit in the Delhi High Court.
The case is among the first in India after the product patent regime was introduced in January 2005. Product patents offers exclusivity for 20 years.
In March, the Delhi High Court allowed Cipla to sell its version of erlotinib, dismissing Roche's plea. Roche appealed against the decision of the single bench before a division bench, but the court upheld the decision and slapped a Rs 5 lakh fine on Roche.
"The decision of the Supreme Court shows that Roche has been engaged in frivolous litigation against us. It will help cancer patients in India access the drug at cheaper rates," said Amar Lulla, joint managing director of Cipla. Roche could not be contacted.
Nearly 160,000 people in the country are estimated to be suffering from cancer, which has a high fatality rate. Cipla's generic version costs Rs 1,600 a tablet, one-third the price of Roche’s medicine.
The news comes as a shot in the arm for cancer patients, who were being asked to shell out as much as Rs 1,50,000 for a single phial of Tarceva. As a matter of fact, Roche and Novartis, both Swiss firms, have been bullying Indian patients with their extremely expensive, patented medicines, and have been arm-twisting patent authorities to ensure no other pharma company is allowed to make cheaper, and possibly superior versions of their drugs. In this context, the decision of the patent office in Bangalore to strike down Wockhardt's initiative to develop an alternative to Roche's anti-Hepatitis C drug, pegylated interferon, is unfortunate -- this, in a country where more than 3 million suffer from the disease. About time Indian authorities focussed more on the larger issue of public health instead of working as a money spinner for unscrupulous MNCs.
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