The Rt Hon Vince Cable MP
Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
BIS
1 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0ET

28 February 2011

Dear Vince,

EU-India Free Trade Agreement

I am writing to express concern about aspects of the EU-India Free Trade Agreement, which will have consequences for the availability of generic medicines, including HIV/Aids drugs.

As you will know, under TRIPS India designed its patent law in such as way as to protect public health, with patents only being granted to truly innovative medicines. However, the Data Exclusivity element of the new bi-lateral agreement puts this position at risk. Preventing drugs manufacturers from relying on existing clinical trials data would effectively end the sale of all new drugs and combination therapies legally produced by Indian generics companies. Forcing manufacturers to carry out their own clinical trials would be prohibitively expensive. Moreover, given that this would mean repeating trials for drugs that are already proven as effective, thus denying a further control group access to life saving medicine, such a move is also ethically questionable. The prices of essential medicines from India are affordable because competition between multiple generic drug manufacturers forces prices down. Data Exclusivity would result in higher prices and an end to competition.

The implications of this are staggering. 96 of the 100 countries that purchased Anti RetroViral treatment in 2008 did so from India, including many countries in sub-Saharan Africa with a high prevalence of HIV. Medecins Sans Frontieres sources 80% of its Aids medicines from India. This is because generic production there has made treatment affordable - less than 70 dollars for one person's treatment for a year, compared to 10,000 dollars. Data Exclusivity would deny access to this life saving treatment for thousands of people in the poorest parts of the world. It far exceeds what is required under international trade rules and could undermine the right to health.

I welcome the statement of February 2nd 2011 from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Baroness Wilcox that intellectual property provisions in the EU-India free trade agreement "should not impact negatively on public health in developing countries, including India". In light of this will you be willing to call for Data Exclusivity to be removed from the EU-India Free Trade Agreement and make a clear commitment to vote against its inclusion in the bi-lateral agreement?

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Lucas, MP, Brighton Pavilion

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