The ruling allows the Asian country, dubbed the ‘€œpharmacy of the developing world’€, to continue supplying antiretrovirals at much reduced prices to countries battling to treat the thousands in need. This includes South Africa.

An elated Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), which led international opposition against the Novartis move, hailed the ruling as a major victory for patients’€™ access to affordable medicine in developing countries.

Novartis took the Indian government to court over its 2005 Patents Act because it wanted more extensive patent protection for its products than offered by the law.

The drug company claimed that India’€™s Patents Act did not meet rules set down by the World Trade Organisation and was in violation of the Indian constitution.

Success by Novartis would have seen an end to the supply of certain affordable antiretrovirals to poorer countries and could have led to other drug companies take similar steps. A ruling in favour of the company would have also drastically restricted the production of affordable medicines in India that are crucial for the treatment of diseases throughout the developing world.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said in a statement that all of Novartis’€™ claims had been rejected by the High Court on Monday.

‘€œThis is a huge relief for millions of patients and doctors in developing countries who depend on affordable medicines from India,’€ said Dr Tido von Schoen-Angerer, Director of the MSF Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines.

The Court’€™s decision now makes Indian patents on the medicines that patients desperately need less likely.

‘€œWe call upon multinational drug companies and wealthy countries to leave the Indian Patents Act alone and
stop pushing for ever stricter patent regimes in developing countries,’€ Von Schoen-Angerer urged.
Developing country governments and international agencies like UNICEF and the Clinton Foundation rely heavily on importing affordable drugs from India, and 84% of the antiretrovirals that MSF prescribes to its patients worldwide come from Indian generic companies.

‘€œIndia must be allowed to remain the pharmacy of the developing world,’€ MSF said in a statement.
Over 420,000 people worldwide signed a petition requesting Novartis to drop the case.

Among them were the Indian Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, members from the European Parliament and the US Congress, former UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis as well as authors John Le Carré and Naomi Klein.