MARGAO: City-based lawyer, Adv Cleofato Almeida Coutinho called for changes in the law to protect rights of patients in certain critical diseases so that drugs in such areas are available to them.
While appreciating the stand of the Indian Patent Appellate Board and various courts including the Supreme Court on the issue protecting the interests of Indian patients, he opined that critical areas cannot be left to adjudication by interpretation and must be protected by legislation. He said that various flexibilities are available under the TRIPS-Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement of the World Trade Organization must be fully exploited to benefit the citizens. He was speaking at the ASWAD programme of Gomantak Vidhya Niketan, Margao on patents and drug pricing.
Adv Almeida Coutinho further said that in western countries, health programme was fully subsided by insurance companies and reinvestment programmes. However, in India, the health sector was left to, what he called, an out of pocket expenditure thus putting the lower sections of society beyond medical health even in critical areas. He stressed that India must increase its spending on health while increasing the reinvestment programme and health insurance cover.
During the lecture Adv Almeida Coutinho fully appreciated the stand of the Left parties on the issue of Patents Law and stated that the various pro-society interpretation by the different High Courts including the one of the Supreme Court in the Novartis case is due to the changes brought in the 2005 amendment are at the instance of the Left parties. He further said that though the UPA government came to power in 2004, the Left parties threatened to pull it down in 2005 if the pro-society changes permitted under the TRIPS law were not brought in our Patent Law.
