At The Behest Of Big Pharma, US Threatens Colombia Over Compulsory Licensing Of Swiss Drug

from the destroying-lives,-destroying-peace dept

Fri, May 13th 2016 3:24am — Glyn Moody

As Techdirt readers well know, Big Pharma really hates compulsory licensing of its patented drugs, where a country steps in and allows an expensive drug to be made more cheaply in order to provide wider access for its people. Such massive pressure is applied to nations contemplating this move, that even global giants like India quail. A new story is unfolding that reveals just how far companies are prepared to go in order to prevent it from happening. It concerns Colombia's possible use of a compulsory license for the drug imatinib, sold under the name Glivec, and used to treat leukemia. Despite the fact that the company holding patents on the drug, Novartis, is Swiss, the US has started to lean heavily on Colombia in order to persuade it not to go ahead with the move.

KEI has obtained a copy of a letter from Andrés Floréz at the Embassy of Colombia in Washington, DC, to the Minister of Health in Colombia, reporting on a meeting between embassy officials and Everett Eissenstat. He's the Chief International Trade Counsel for the US Senate Committee on Finance, under Senator Orrin Hatch. Apparently, Eissenstat conveyed quite forcefully his views on the negative consequences for Colombia if it decided to issue a compulsory license on the cancer drug Glivec:

Eissenstat mentioned that although Novartis is not an American company, the US pharmaceutical industry was very worried about the possibility that the case would become a precedent that could be applied to any patent in any industry which, according to him, could lead to the reputation of our country's respect for intellectual property rights being viewed as impaired and Colombia becoming one among those countries that would have special treatment...

Einssenstat also mentioned that, if the Ministry of Health does not correct this situation, the US pharmaceutical industry and related interest groups could become very vocal and interfere with other interests that Colombia could have in the US.

Nice little country you have there -- be a shame if something happened to it. Stat News mentioned a couple of forms that "special treatment" might take: A free-trade treaty between the two countries went into effect four years ago, which obligates Colombia to comply with various international trade laws. Florez also cautioned that issuing a compulsory license for the Novartis drug may "weaken support" for bringing Colombia into the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact between 12 countries in the Asia and Pacific regions that must still be approved by Congress.
But the most extraordinary threat is the following, reported here by KEI: Senator Hatch was so opposed to the idea of a compulsory license on the patent for a $40+ Billion cancer drug made by a Swiss company that he was willing to find an extremely sensitive area for the Colombian people and use it as leverage. The [Paz Colombia] peace process in question is the hopeful conclusion to decades of fighting in the country with guerrilla rebels that has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
The US is willing to jeopardize the entire "Paz Colombia" peace plan, all because Big Pharma is outraged a developing country might dare to use its international right to issue a compulsory license. As KEI Director James Love commented: The use of these back channel methods of conveying threats and pressure is common, and the leak of these two letters provides insight into why governments that have the right to issue compulsory licenses rarely do. The fact that after meeting with Eissenstat, the Colombian Embassy connects the patent dispute to the funding of the Colombian peace process illustrates how the United States can link health and national security together in ways that a harmful to both.
It can surely only be a matter of time before Colombia obediently toes the line, and recognizes that Big Pharma's patents and profits are much more important than the health and lives of its people.

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Filed Under: colombia, compulsory licensing, everett eissenstat, glivec, health, orrin hatch, threats, trade agreements
Companies: novartis

29 Comments

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Capt ICE Enforcer, 13 May 2016 @ 4:08am

Leaker
OMG. Another individual published state secrets. Send them all to jail.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 4:36am

Big Pharma : "OMG - some poor schmucks might actually get better without us getting our cut. This means war!"
Big Pharma only cares about it's shareholders, not about actual patients.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 4:38am

Looks like Columbia is in a lose-lose proposition
Columbia can either risk losing their peace processes or risk having their leukemia patients not get the treatment they need. Seems like a country facing two losing options and backed into a corner isn't likely to care much about the US for long.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 4:39am

Re: Looks like Columbia is in a lose-lose proposition
A lot of countries need to stop caring about the US.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 4:45am

Re: Re: Looks like Columbia is in a lose-lose proposition
They hate us for our freedoms
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 4:47am

Live by IP...
die by IP.

Abolish IP.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 4:53am

Re: Re: Re: Looks like Columbia is in a lose-lose proposition
They hate you for your bullying and the way you spread the worse bits of your culture, like fast food joints.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 4:55am

Big corp with too much power. Just w what the TPP will give. No more sovereignty of a nation for profits. Good on Columbia.
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freakanatcha (profile), 13 May 2016 @ 5:33am

US Threatens Colombia Over Compulsory Licensing Of Swiss Drug
Do I have this right? These are the same drug companies that move hdqtrs outside of the U.S. because, gosh darn, we don't like to pay taxes (but we sure love price gouging.
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DannyB (profile), 13 May 2016 @ 5:41am

Here is a way to make everyone happy
Big Pharma hates compulsory licensing.

There is a simple solution that would make everyone happy. Big Pharma should be very happy because compulsory licensing would cease to exist.

Simply eliminate patents on drugs.

Problem solved. Everyone happy.
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Capt ICE Enforcer, 13 May 2016 @ 6:14am

Sleep at night.
I wonder how they sleep at night. Help save millions of lives. Or get a $4,000 a year bonus from Big Pharma. Such tough decisions.
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ryuugami, 13 May 2016 @ 6:25am

Re: Re: Re: Looks like Columbia is in a lose-lose proposition
We hate you for our freedoms.

Well, not you personally. Your government and corporations (are those even separate?).
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 13 May 2016 @ 6:57am

Considering the stuff that the Colombians are trying to put an end to with the Paz Colombia process, I don't suppose there's any way to take this threat by Everett Eissenstat and charge him with support for terrorism?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 7:01am

A textbook example of how politicians in America are utterly owned by corporations.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 9:20am

Re:
At this point i would cheer if the government nationalized the drug companies...
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 11:02am

This is rhetorical; why is The US of A not gang raped by the rest of the world?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 11:38am

Re:
Oh ya, because they carry the biggest stick in the world with them everywhere they go and are not scared of abusing it.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 11:41am

Re: Re:
USA....................apx. $600 Billion
China..................apx. $145 Billion
Saudi Arabia.......apx. $82 Billion

need I go on?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 11:42am

Re: Re: Re:
That's defensive spending budget numbers by the way.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 11:46am

Libya went on the gold standard and where are they now.

Go against US interests and get your country bombed into oblivion in the name of "democracy and freedom"
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 11:47am

Re: Re: Re: Looks like Columbia is in a lose-lose proposition
The freedom to put slave collars around your necks.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2016 @ 1:27am

We should make an international effort to gather and preserve the testimony of dying patients around the world who suffer because of drug patents. Doing this could lay the groundwork for some truly massive lawsuits against Big Pharma and its political henchmen.

We will also need to show the falsehood of the industry's claim that its ill-gotten profits are helping patients by supporting drug research. Not only is the ratio of profits to research very small, but little of that research actually ends up helping patients. The patent profits fuel just enough research to make another patentable drug, which is used to continue the cycle of ghoulish extortion.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2016 @ 4:05am

"may "weaken support" for bringing Colombia into the Trans-Pacific Partnership"

That's not a threat, it's an incentive.
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sc77 (profile), 14 May 2016 @ 2:48pm

Re:
And there's also this, from back in 2013, lest it be forgotten: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/chinas-bitter-medicine-foreign-drug-companies/

Needs many, many, more countries to follow suit because this bs is still going on globally.
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sc77 (profile), 14 May 2016 @ 3:07pm

If this statement...

"Liang Hong, one of the GSK executives....was quoted by China’s state-run media as saying that the costs of the bribes were eventually wrapped up into the price of medicines, accounting for up to 30% of a drug’s final price"...

....is true in China, how much more so in every other country in the world?

The majority of drug companies really need to be turned upside down, torn apart, and exposed for the crimes they commit against humanity.

You only have to talk to the relatives of those who've died as a direct result of not being able to afford vital medicines (or died of exposure to biological weapons - and who creates those?), to reach that conclusion.

Let's not kid ourselves.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/chinas-bitter-medicine-foreign-drug-companies/
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Wendy Cockcroft, 16 May 2016 @ 6:02am

Re: Here is a way to make everyone happy
I second that. IP has no business being involved in the manufacture of essential drugs. It's a public menace! And the best the "But free enterprise" people can give us is, "You have a choice: take it or leave it." That's not much of a choice.
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Wendy Cockcroft, 16 May 2016 @ 6:03am

Re: Re:
They might have to, in order to break their power. After that, though, I'd be fine with letting private enterprise run these companies on condition that IP on drugs is abolished.
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Wendy Cockcroft, 16 May 2016 @ 6:04am

Re:
The sad truth is that the people who support this abomination would not be moved by such testimonies.
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Wendy Cockcroft, 16 May 2016 @ 6:05am

Re:
Get IP off drugs, end of problem.
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