New Delhi, Dec. 20: International humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres today launched a global campaign to build pressure on the pharmaceutical giant Novartis to abandon its attempts to force changes in Indian patent laws passed by Parliament.

Earlier this year, Novartis had challenged in court Section 3D of the Indian Patents Act which MSF and patients’ groups view as a safeguard that restricts the granting of patents on questionable innovation such as new uses, new forms or new combinations of known drugs.

“The legal action by Novartis challenges steps that the Indian government and Parliament have taken to safeguard people’s health,” Leena Menghaney, an officer with MSF India, said.

“If Section 3D is removed, new forms of known drugs, new uses of known drugs and new combinations of known drugs will all become patentable,” Menghaney said. MSF has warned that in such a situation, more drugs would be patentable in India and drug prices would rise.

India’s generic drug manufacturers have long been a source of essential medicines for patients in India and other developing countries. MSF says generic antiviral medicines from India are used to treat 80 per cent of the 80,000 people in its AIDS projects in 30 countries.

“We are urging Novartis to drop the case and we’re asking everyone everywhere to sign on the support petition,” Christian Captier, director general of MSF, said. It has asked people and organisations around the world to sign the petition that can be accessed online through the MSF website.

A Novartis spokesperson said the company “stands firm” on its decision to take legal action in India. “We strongly disagree with the contention that this legal action will adversely impact access to affordable medicines in the developing world,” the spokesperson said.

The next hearing is expected to take place on January 29 in Chennai High Court.

The case is centred on Novartis’s Glivec, a drug used to treat a form of blood cancer. In January this year, India’s patent office rejected a patent application on Glivec on the ground that the drug was a new form of an old drug.

Novartis said Glivec has been recognised as a breakthrough treatment for certain forms of cancer and has patent protection in 36 countries.

The company has challenged Section 3D, arguing that it is “illogical” and violates World Trade Organisation rules. But MSF and patients’ groups point out that in 2001, WTO countries had signed the Doha declaration that allows nations to promote access to medicines.

Novartis was one of 39 companies that had taken the South African government to court five years ago in an effort to prevent it from importing inexpensive anti-HIV drugs.

Under public pressure, the companies had withdrawn the case.

“India designed a patent law that has safeguards that ensure that only genuinely new, innovative drugs can be patented,” said Gopa Kumar, a public health activist with the Centre for Trade and Development.

Health activists suspect that hundreds of patent applications on drugs pending with the Indian patent office could be challenged under Section 3D. “Over the past 10 years, the US Food and Drugs Administration has approved only about 350 new molecules, but we have over 9,000 patent applications on drugs pending,” Kumar said.