Ten years ago Dr Yusuf Hamied, chairman of the Indian drug company, Cipla, stunned the global health community by drastically decreasing the price of anti-AIDS drugs. Thanks to this initiative the price of the AIDS cocktail of drugs is now about 20 cents a day, a fraction of what it used to be. In 2001, there were about 2,000 people in the developing world receiving these drugs, now that figure is over 6 million. AIDS, because of the availability of these drugs, is no longer a death warrant.
Dr Hamied had to deal with the patent rights of the drug companies and governments of Western countries who were not keen to give them up. In general it came down to making these drugs available on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, which means the patent owners were motivated to give up their exclusive rights (which usually lasts for 20 years) for making the drugs based on helping the poor person with AIDS.

Ten years hence the battle lines are drawn again between patent rights and patient rights for Western drugs for non- communicable diseases like cancer and diabetes which are plaguing the developing world. These diseases are generally the consequences of better and longer life. Poor nations want freer patent rules. But Western nations and big pharma (Roche, Pfizer) are saying that for continued incentive for further discoveries and invention of drugs (like breast cancer medicine, Herceptin) they need to push for patent rights.

The indefatigable Dr Hamied is again in the picture willing to make these expensive cancer and diabetes drugs as copy cat, knock off drugs using biotechnology. He is joined by his Chinese drug company friends (BioMab) to help make the drugs available at a fraction of the Western price. Don't be surprised if we start obtaining our cancer and diabetes drugs from the Chinese border town of Khasa.

This time Western governments and drug companies are taking a long, hard look. They are contemplating not giving up their patent rights as easily as they did with the AIDS drugs. At this rate they fear the lack of incentive for new discoveries, the humanitarian factor notwithstanding.

The United Nations is currently tackling the issue of rampant non-communicable diseases in the developing world, and the stage is set for heated debates regarding patents that will affect the lives of millions of patients worldwide.