Bernie Sanders accuses US Trade Rep of intimidating Colombia over Novartis patent

[Judi Lynn]

Bernie Sanders accuses US Trade Rep of intimidating Colombia over Novartis patent
By Ed Silverman @Pharmalot

May 26, 2016

Bernie Sanders is the latest lawmaker to chastise United States Trade Representative Michael Froman for pressuring Colombia not to sidestep a patent on a Novartis drug.

In a letter sent Thursday, the presidential aspirant and Sherrod Brown, a Democratic Senator from Ohio, wrote that they find it “unconscionable” that Froman’s staff would attempt to “intimidate” Colombian officials for planning to issue a compulsory license for the Gleevec cancer medicine. And they warn that such actions suggest the US is “elevating corporate profits over public health priorities.”

Earlier this month, staff from both the US Senate Finance Committee and the US Trade Rep’s Office met with Colombian embassy officials in Washington D.C., and told them that issuing such a license might jeopardize $450 million in US funding for a peace effort, as well as backing for a free-trade treaty. The meetings were described in letters that embassy officials sent to Colombian government ministers.

A country can issue a license so that a generic company can make a brand-name medicine without the consent of the company holding a patent. And Colombia Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria plans this step because it is in “the public interest,” since Novartis has refused to negotiate a lower price and won an exclusive patent on one of two forms of the drug, precluding competition.

More:
https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2016/05/26/bernie-sanders-novartis-patent/

LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141466668

[tonyt53]

1. A generic version was launched in the US this past February

Also, such a move on patents will lead to more countries doing the same with US patents. We really really do nto want that happening. Things are much deeper than the articles present.