EU-India trade deal could cost lives, aid groups warn

BRUSSELS - A planned free-trade deal between the European Union (EU) and India could cost lives if it stops Indian companies selling cheap “generic” AIDS drugs to even poorer states, leading aid organisations warned Monday.

The EU and India are currently negotiating the free-trade agreement (FTA), which is aimed at stimulating business between them while protecting key industries and rights, including patents.

“The right to life and health of people in developing countries is being sacrificed in this deal. Do not put profits before patients,” implored Loon Gangte, president of the Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP+), in a statement published together with aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

MSF and DNP+ fear that clauses in the proposed FTA would limit India’s ability to export cheap “generic” AIDS drugs, based on formulae developed and patented by other firms, around the world.

India is the source of some 80 percent of the AIDS drugs which MSF uses in its global operations, the statement said.

“Without quality affordable medicines from Indian sources, it would have been impossible to scale up treatment to the levels seen today, and millions of lives would not have been saved,” it said.

Aid groups say that clauses in the FTA would force generic drug companies to run their products through all the expensive clinical trials already conducted by proprietary companies (those which patent their products), and would oblige India to impound any patent-breaking drugs found on its territory.

This “not only creates huge financial barriers that act as a disincentive to generic companies, but it is also in violation of medical ethics, as people are subjected to the risks of clinical studies for something that is already known,” MSF said.

However, European Commission trade spokesman John Clancy stressed that the EU executive was working to ensure that the deal had no impact on AIDS treatment.

The commission is “100-percent committed to ensuring access to medicines which are very important to save lives, especially of the poor, in developing states. There is nothing in this accord which will limit the flexibility of India to produce life-saving medicines for export”, he said.