Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjowarnedthat a UK-India trade deal would lead to huge cost increases for health systems and catastrophic delays in access to medicines if UK negotiating demands were met.
The UK wants India to implement sweeping changes to its intellectual property rules as part of any deal, threatening India’s ability to supply cheap, quality medicines to the rest of the world.
In a reviewpiecepublished on Devex, Mr Obasanjo describes Indian generics as a lifeline which he says has helped make HIV drugs affordable for African countries.
However, he said a trade deal between India and the UK could cut short that lifeline.
During my term as President of Nigeria, I was able to see for myself the impact of Indian generics. In 1999, as I began my second term, Nigeria could not afford HIV treatment, even though we were experiencing one of the worst epidemics in Africa at the time, he said.
In the early 2000s, Indian genericscutthe price of treatment from more than $10,000 per year per patient to around $365, or one dollar per day. In 2008, Indiaprovided 84 percentNigerian antiretroviral drugs for HIV, saving countless lives.
He noted that Nigeria is now one of India’s top five pharmaceutical importers.expensesmore than half a billion dollars per year.
Negotiation
A negotiation documentleakLast year revealed the extent of the UK’s intellectual property demands on India.
The document, according to reports, included increasing the 20-year monopoly that pharmaceutical companies can have on drugs before facing generic competition and repealing Indian law that allows patents to be challenged before they are not granted or extended.
Mr Obasanjo said the UK proposals would lead to huge cost increases for health systems and catastrophic delays in access to medicines.
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India provides more thanhalfgeneric medicines from Africa, and athirdof those used by the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS). Disrupting their supply is not in the best interest of our patients or our health systems, he said.
His article comes as the UK and India appear to be making progresscloserto the agreement. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was also previouslyexpectedto travel to India to sign the agreement this week, but his trip would have beenpostponedwhile points of disagreement remain.
Mr Obasanjo said the world had only just emerged from a pandemic marked by global inequality and the lessons of the past three years were clear.
He urged governments to work together to ensure countries can access the technology and know-how needed to manufacture and deliver enough medical supplies safely and affordably to meet people’s needs.
Free trade agreements should make it easier for all countries to access affordable medicines, he said.
They should ensure that health systems can respond to emerging threats while continuing to provide routine health services.
He said the UK-India trade deal represents an opportunity for both countries to promote fairness and health for all populations.
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