India’s Efforts to Aid Poor Worry Drug Makers

The article “India’s Efforts to Aid Poor Worry Drug Makers” shed light on the extremely expensive drugs that are a burden on the people needing them. One of those medicines, probably the most important and expensive, is the cancer medicines. There are so many women who are unable to afford a single treatment. The scarcity of the cancer medicines caused by its high prices and the growing demand had caught authority attention. The Indian government threatened to produce a cheaper and generic form of Herceptin, a strong breast cancer medicine. For those poor and who cannot afford any part of the $18,000 for a course of the treatment, this was something to look forward to: The producers of such drugs are who saw danger in such government intervention. The Herceptin maker from Switzerland Roche Holdings, refused but latter gave patent right after realizing the guaranteed lost in front of the law. The argument over the price of the expensive cancer medicine continues. There are serious international attempts from government officials of India to betterment of the situation.  The attempts include bringing innovative medicine and discovering cures and technology to help the large and poor population of cancer patient in India. Many experts suggest that even more investment should be done on preventing rather than curing. The Indian successful attempts to adopt paten laws spread around the world in countries including Brazil, Colombia and the Philippines. The effect does not stop there, but is also affecting the USA that also has expensive cancer medicine regardless of Medicare.

 

Expensive drugs and disease control is a global matter that no longer start or stop at one point. The different types of cancers and their expensive treatment are health problem facing both developed and underdeveloped countries. The fact that the problem has gained international attention, especially by the United States, points that the cancer epidemic is something that requires global attention and specially that of developed countries. India account for a large percent of the world’s health problems and cancer is a becoming the second HIV. Although Indian women are less likely to get breast cancer compared to the women in the United states, they are more likely to die as a result of it thus it is fatal in this case. The review over the paten right and government steps toward controlling high drug prices around the world is evident. Globalization and the technological age account for such advancement on shedding light over such issues. India is also to be thanked for both opening the world eyes and proving that it is ‘here’ for its national issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/30/health/indias-efforts-to-aid-poor-worry-drugmakers.html