So says Paul Herrling, who heads the drugmaker’s global research, about the row over India’s decision to reject the Gleevec patent and Novartis’ decision to challenge provisions in the country’s patent laws.

It’s an interesting question-and-answer with India’s Business World magazine, and one of the few attempts Novartis has made to combat the public relations war its clearly losing so far. A growing number of politicians are joining Doctors Without Borders and patient advocates to decry the drugmaker’s stance as threatening access to life-saving medicines.

Here are a few excerpts:

Do you think that the price that you have paid in terms of your public image is worth this patent that you might get if you win?

It is a problem that so many people are upset. We do not want to be seen the way we are being portrayed. One of the leaders of this petition against us is (Doctors Without Borders). As you may also know, I am the chairman of the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases in Singapore that makes drugs against tuberculosis, dengue and malaria for patients in poor countries — which we will sell at no profit. I work with many people from DWB on projects. And, they are actually wonderful people. But they were never into drug discovery. They do not know the conditions that are needed to make a new drug. They think if one would weaken or abolish patents, then the problem of access for medicines would be solved. This is wrong.”

This case really is not about whether India respects product patents per se. It is challenging certain provisions that define what can be patented and what cannot.

The amendments (to the patent law) undermine a significant aspect of patents. They say if it is essentially the same idea and you make improvements on it, then you cannot patent it. But that is not the way science works

Does the rejection of the patent on Glivec, or the way people have broadly reacted to the lawsuit, affect your R&D investments or collaborations in India in any way?

Yes. When I was asked why we created our research institute in Singapore, not in India, which also has the talent, the same diseases and so on, that is the reason. We have announced the creation of a major research institute in Shanghai. There we see that it’s not perfect but the system is in place to get to a better and better improvement of intellectual properties.

What about the R&D collaborations that you already have?

They are successful, but because of this intellectual property insecurity we are not doing chemistry that leads directly to a potential medicine but only supportive work. If this point would be clarified in the positive, we could expand it. Then there would be no difference in the collaborations we do in India versus the US, China or any other place.

(Hat tip to Drugwonks)

[tags]Gleevec, India, Novartis, Patents[/tags]