'Britain is doing Big Pharma's bidding, and harming itself, by trying to curb Indian generics'

Several international organisations working to improve people’s access to medicines have written to the UK government protesting against provisions in a proposed India-UK FTA after the chapter on intellectual property was leaked. The provisions related to pharmaceutical IP could prevent India from making affordable generics on which the National Health Service (NHS) of the UK and several other countries depend. Nick Dearden, the director of Global Justice Now, spoke to Rema Nagarajan explaining why India’s ability to produce generics is crucial not only to the Global South but to the UK too:

- Rema Nagarajan

● How dependent is the UK on drugs from India?

Four out of five drugs used in the NHS are generics and a third of these are produced in India. So about 25% of the drugs in the NHS come from India. Between 2011 and 2016, the NHS started to experience a crisis in the amount of money it was spending on new, very expensive drugs. The amount the NHS spent rose in those years by £3.8 billion. That is more than twice the total NHS deficit at that time – £1.85 billion. The crisis was so severe that the NHS began to look for ways to save money, including importing more generics. It worked. The price of the drug imatinib was approximately £27,200 per year. With the generic version, it came down to £556 for a course of treatment. One drug, adalimumab, was previously the most expensive drug at more than £400 million per year. Generic importation of this drug helped save £110 million in just one year. It is one of several drugs on which switching to generic importation helped the NHS save almost £300 million in a year.

● How do more expensive drugs put NHS patients’ lives at risk?