Novartis was one of the 39 companies that took the South African government to court five years ago, in an effort to overturn the country's medicines act that was designed to bring drug prices down. Now Novartis is up to it again and is targeting India.
India produces affordable medicines that are vital to many people living in developing countries. Over half the medicines currently used for AIDS treatment in developing countries come from India and such medicines are used to treat over 80% of the 80,000 AIDS patients in Médecins Sans Frontières projects.
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Pharmaceutical companies, like other business enterprises, are motivated to remain profitable, and perhaps one can debate whether such companies should substantially or totally give up their profits in third world countries where residents will never have the money to pay for medicines. What cannot be debated by any rational person (and certainly anyone worth spending any amount of my precious time with), is that it is ludicrous and shameful that curable diseases afflict people in this world due to lack of access to medication and basic health care.
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