Novartis suffered a big setback in India with its Gleevec cancer med, as a court rejected its challenge to a law that denies patents for minor improvements to existing drugs. The drugmaker says it unlikely to appeal, according to a statement by Ranjit Shahani, vice chair and managing director of Novartis India.

Earlier this year, Novartis challenged India’s rejection of protection for an ingredient in the medicine, after the Indian government denied the application, saying the drug was insufficiently innovative. India allows patent officials to exclude products that are based on “incremental innovation.” The patent rejection meant that generic companies could manufacture and market their drug. Novartis argued strong patent laws would strengthen research in India.

But India’s High Court in Chennai deferred to the World Trade Organization to settle whether India was meeting international trade rules. Doctors Without Borders and other groups argue that a Novartis court victory would have dried up a major source of affordable meds for people across the globe. Toward that end, they launched a bruising public relations war against the drugmaker.

“This is a huge relief for millions of patients and doctors….

“…in developing countries who depend on affordable medicines from India,” Tido von Schoen-Angerer, director of the Doctors Without Borders Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, wrote in an e-mail to journalists. “The Court’s decision now makes Indian patents on the medicines that we desperately need less likely. We 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.”

“It is clear there are inadequacies in Indian patent law that will have negative consequences for patients and public health in India,” Paul Herrling, head of research at Novartis, in a statement. “Medical progress occurs through incremental innovation. If Indian patent law does not recognize these important advances, patients will be denied new and better medicines.”

In April, the same court had also ordered that another challenge by Novartis to a January decision that rejected its patent application for a cancer drug, Glivec, be referred to an appellate board. That patent application was turned down because the drug was a new form of a known substance.

At the time, India’s Health Minister, Anbumani Ramadoss, said the government was “very concerned” that the Novartis challenge could restrict the global supply of AIDS drugs, Reuters notes.