Thread by @ThePollLady

1. Do you know recently draft of
UK-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was leaked.

Under clauses UK was found forcing India to amend its national patent laws, a move would benefit UK pharma companies & bring big losses to UK National Health services & Indian generic medicine.

2. The leaked chapter of FTA contained 2 very concerning provisions

Firstly, allowing UK pharma companies to ‘evergreen’ their drug patents.

Evergreening is practice of filing patent extensions by making minor changes to drugs just before patent expires at 20 yrs limit.

3. Second provision in the leaked FTA draft wants India to end “pre-grant” patent oppositions.

This is main mechanism used to block unjustified patents before they are granted. This prevents patent monopolies and boosts the manufacturing of affordable generic versions.

You can go through “Intellectual Property” or Patent law removal chapter of the leaked India-UK FTA draft here 👇

bilaterals.org/IMG/pdf/uk-ind…

4. These two clauses were severely criticised in the UK as they would not only harm the Indian generic drug manufacturers but also create problems for the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

Generic drugs manufactured by India save NHS a lot of money.

5. For example, a cancer drug used in treatment of leukaemia was previously priced at £27,200 per year in UK but now NHS only pays £556.32 for a course because they buying Indian generic version.

This of course upsets the Big Pharmaceutical giants.

6. After leak of draft, many UK NGOs and even the famous peer reviewed general medical journal “Lancet” criticised the UK government.

They said this will have disastrous consequences on global supply of generic medicines & asked India to stay vigilant.

thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/…

7. This made UK government back peddle and issue repeated denials.

In one of the recent denials to “mint” british spokesman almost made it sound like it was India who wanted these clause. Laughable!

8. As of now India has completely rejected UK 'patent evergreening' demands.

UK India FTA negotiations seems to be stuck on issues linked to alcohol industry, automobiles, intellectual property/Patent, and mobility of students and professionals.

9. Now is it a coincidence that father-in law of UK PM Rishi Sunak - NR Murthy was recently seen criticising Indian generic drug manufacturing industry?

Even his allegations are not proven : WHO refuses to provide evidence & Gambia denied Indian cough syrup caused the deaths.