The court took note of the life-saving nature of Cipla's Erlontinib , which is priced at a third of the Roche product. The next hearing on the matter is scheduled for August 6, but Indian pharmaceutical companies and organisations pushing for cheaper medicine have already started rejoicing. Big Pharma, of course, is watching the case with fear and anxiety.
For Cipla Chairman Yusuf Hamied, it was another milestone in his long battle with multinational drug firms over life-saving drugs. When contacted after the Delhi High Court verdict, Hamied, who was holidaying in Spain, was cautious in his response: "I have not seen the verdict. But I can say that it is too early to generalise the outcome of the court's view. Each patent is unique and has to be considered separately."
The streak to take on the mighty and the powerful is in Hamied's genes. His father, Khwaja Abdul Hamied, had got his first taste of imperial high-handedness in 1913 in Kanpur when people were shot in a mosque not far from where he lived. He was just 15 and barely managed to save his life.
After completing his doctorate from Berlin University in 1927, he returned to India with a dream to start an Indian pharmaceutical venture. Thus was born The Chemical, Industrial and Pharmaceutical Laboratories (now shortened to Cipla) in 1935. He transferred all his intellectual property to the company without charging a penny in royalty.
Sixty-five years later, in 2000, his son stunned the pharmaceutical world by offering to sell anti-retroviral drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS at a fraction of existing prices. In an event that gained huge publicity at that time, he told a European Commission meeting that he could sell a three-drug anti-retroviral combination for around $800 per patient, while multinational pharmaceutical companies were selling it for over $12,000.
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The next year, he brought his price further down to $300 and finally to $140. This opened the floodgates for Indian drug makers. Soon, countries facing the HIV/AIDS epidemic started placing large orders with them.
The Erlontinib case was the next logical step. In 2005, India switched to a regime of product patents. Companies could no longer produce clones of patented medicine. Knowing very well that Roche had got the patent for Tarceva in July 2007, Cipla went ahead and launched Erlontinib in January this year.
The Delhi High Court has opened the debate one more time for life-saving drugs