{"id":10712,"date":"2018-12-10T13:48:35","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T12:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saludporderecho.org\/?p=10712"},"modified":"2018-12-10T13:48:35","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T12:48:35","slug":"we-are-still-in-the-legal-battle-against-the-patent-for-the-hepatitis-c-drug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saludporderecho.org\/en\/we-are-still-in-the-legal-battle-against-the-patent-for-the-hepatitis-c-drug\/","title":{"rendered":"We are still in the legal battle against the patent for the hepatitis C drug"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We have presented, together with five other European organizations -M\u00e9decins du Monde (MdM), M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF), AIDES (France), Access to Medicines Ireland, Praksis (Greece) \u2013 an appeal against the decision in September of the European Patent Office (EPO) to maintain the patent of the US pharmaceutical company Gilead Science on sofosbuvir, a key drug for hepatitis C. We ask the European Patent Office (EPO) to revoke Gilead\u2019s patent because it does not meet the requirements to be a patentable invention from a legal or scientific perspective.<\/p>\n<p>The appeal comes exactly five years after sofosbuvir was first approved for use, in the US, where Gilead launched the drug at US$1,000 per pill, or $84,000 for a 12-week treatment course. The corporation has made more than $10 billion in profit from sales of the drug in the last five years.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2017, <a href=\"https:\/\/saludporderecho.org\/en\/we-ask-together-with-other-civil-society-organizations-the-end-of-gileads-unjustified-monopoly-in-europe-on-the-anti-hepatitis-c-drug\/\">33 civil society organisations from 17 European countries filed a challenge against Gilead\u2019s patent<\/a> on the base compound of sofosbuvir, stating that Gilead\u2019s patent claims were not legitimate, primarily because they lack inventiveness.<\/p>\n<p>Gilead\u2019s monopoly on sofosbuvir in Europe has allowed the corporation to charge excessive prices for the drug. In some European countries, Gilead charges as much as 43,000 euros for a twelve-week treatment course, when generic versions of the same course can be purchased for less than 75 euros outside of Europe. These exorbitant prices have forced health systems to ration sofosbuvir, leaving thousands of people in Europe with hepatitis C without treatment.<\/p>\n<p>However, despite compelling arguments presented by the organisations opposing the patent, on 14 September 2018, the EPO decided to uphold Gilead\u2019s patent, thereby making it impossible to produce or sell affordable generic versions of the drug in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The European Patent Office should revoke this patent and avoid monopolies in medicines that, in addition, have been developed with an important part of public money, as we have been denouncing for some time,&#8221; recalls Vanessa L\u00f3pez, director of Health by Law. &#8220;The high price of this and other drugs is putting the sustainability of our health system at risk. So much so that, in Spain, until last year, treatments were rationed and only offered to people in the most advanced stages of the disease. What will happen to the new innovative drugs that are to come?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe EPO is being too lenient with pharmaceutical corporations, giving them a free pass,\u201d said Olivier Maguet of MdM\u2019s drug pricing campaign. \u201cThere needs to be much greater scrutiny in Europe when it comes to determining whether pharmaceutical corporations deserve patents or not; otherwise, unmerited monopolies will continue to result in out-of-control drug prices.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The appeal aims to put an end to pharmaceutical corporations\u2019 abuse of medicines patent systems to increase profits \u2013 including in countries outside Europe, where patent offices often follow the EPO\u2019s decisions when they examine patents filed by pharmaceutical corporations.. As some new patented drugs \u2013 such as those to treat cancer \u2013 come to market with price tags reaching 400,000 euros per person, there is an urgent need to reform patent systems so that people have access to the medicines they need to stay healthy and alive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnmerited patents in Europe are giving pharmaceutical corporations the monopoly power that allows them to charge exorbitant prices for many lifesaving drugs,\u201d said Ga\u00eblle Krikorian, Head of Policy at MSF\u2019s Access Campaign. \u201cThe excessive prices Gilead is charging for sofosbuvir have kept this breakthrough medicine away from millions of people with hepatitis C \u2013 in Europe and around the world. What is the point of medical innovation if people and health systems cannot afford the products coming out of it?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hemos presentado, junto a otras cinco organizaciones europeas, un recurso contra la decisi\u00f3n que tom\u00f3 en septiembre la Oficina Europea de Patentes de mantener la patente de la compa\u00f1\u00eda farmac\u00e9utica estadounidense Gilead Science sobre el sofosbuvir, un medicamento clave para la hepatitis C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[309],"tags":[417,454,411,136,452,176,453,394,106,167,173],"class_list":["post-10712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-slider-en","tag-acceso-a-medicamentos-en","tag-appeal","tag-espana-en","tag-hep-c","tag-hepatitis","tag-medicamentos","tag-patent","tag-patente","tag-salud-por-derecho","tag-sofosbuvir","tag-sovaldi"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>We are still in the legal battle against the patent for the hepatitis C drug | Salud por Derecho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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