On cue, Roche to cut cancer drug prices

Pharma multinationals, long used to selling their patented drugs at exorbitant prices, appear to have heard the message loud and clear.

Days after the Patent Office granted a compulsory licence to Natco Pharma for manufacturing and selling a generic version of German multinational Bayer’s Nexavar, a drug used in the treatment of liver and kidney cancer, Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding on Friday announced plans to offer cut-price versions of two blockbuster cancer drugs for the Indian market soon.

Roche, the world’s biggest maker of cancer drugs, said it would offer “significantly” cheaper, locally branded versions of its two cancer drugs, Herceptin and MabThera, by early next year, under an alliance with India’s Emcure Pharmaceuticals.

“The scope is to enable access for a large majority of patients who currently pay out of pocket as well as to partner with the government to enable increased access to our products for people in need,” spokesman Daniel Grotzky said.

Monthly doses of Herceptin, for breast cancer, and MabThera, for cancers of the blood and lymph system, cost around $3,000-4,500 (`1.5-2.25 lakh) per patient at wholesale prices, said Grotzky.

“With this strategy, we expect to significantly increase the number of patients treated with our therapies and help patients currently under treatment to continue to use our products properly,” he said.
The spokesman would not be drawn on how much the local versions would cost, or whether Roche was responding to the Bayer case.

P H Kurien, the controller of patents, granted Natco the compulsory licence despite Bayer’s patent remaining in force on the ground that poor Indians could not otherwise afford the life-saving drug. Natco will retail Nexavar at `8,800 for a monthly dose, a fraction of the `2.8 lakh Bayer’s version costs.

Campaigners for cheaper access to drugs had hailed the decision. But the ruling reignited fears amongst global drugmakers like Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis who see huge potential in rapidly growing economies such as India but are wary of intellectual property protection.

The Patent Office move on Bayer highlights a growing debate about the cost of modern cancer medicines, which often work far better than traditional chemotherapy but come at a much high price.

In other areas of medicines — notably HIV/AIDS drugs for Africa — drug companies have already cut prices substantially. More recently, some firms, including GlaxoSmithKline, have also been experimenting with discounts on certain products in middle-income countries.

However, Roche has in the past argued that consumers everywhere should pay the same price for its cancer drugs.

The Swiss company said the cheaper versions would be renamed for the Indian market and be packed by Emcure Pharmaceuticals in an effort to gain market share, confirming an earlier report in the Wall Street Journal.

The decision to give the cheaper versions distinct names for the Indian market may help Roche limit the risk that wholesalers buy up the products and try and re-sell them in premium-priced markets such as the United States and Europe.

The trading of pharmaceuticals by middlemen, often via Internet pharmacies, is a growing headache for drug companies and can conceal counterfeits — as happened recently when fake copies of Avastin, another Roche drug, where shipped from the Middle East through Europe to California.

Under the deal with Emcure, Roche will continue to make the cancer medicines at its plants in the US, Singapore and Germany and ship vials of the drugs to Emcure for packaging. Grotzky added that the alliance was triggered in part by India’s desire to see global pharmaceutical companies sign partnerships with Indian companies. Reuters