Switzerland Receives Request For Compulsory Licence On Breast Cancer Drug 01/02/2019 by Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Share this Story:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) IP-Watch is a non-profit independent news service and depends on subscriptions. To access all of our content, please subscribe here. You may also offer additional support with your subscription, or donate. By Catherine Saez Swiss health activist group Public Eye yesterday requested the Swiss government to declare a compulsory licence for a Roche breast cancer treatment which the group says is unaffordable. According to Public Eye [pdf – in French], Swiss federal intellectual property law includes the possibility of compulsory licences. The group prepared a compulsory licence file for Perjeta, (chemical name pertuzumab), a Roche blockbuster, and is asking the Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset to forward it to the Swiss patent court. The request for a compulsory licence is available here [pdf]. “Exorbitant” prices of medicines are leading to skyrocketing health costs in Switzerland, and constitute a barrier to access to medicines, according to Public Eye. The breast cancer treatment combining Perjeta, and Herceptin (chemical name trastuzumab), also manufactured by Swiss-based Roche costs CHF 100,000 per year per patient, according to Public Eye, who adds that the Swiss pharmaceutical giant has banked over CHF 2 billion thanks to its Perjeta sales. A compulsory licence could lower the price of the breast cancer treatment, by allowing the production of generic alternatives, the group said. Share this Story:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Related "Switzerland Receives Request For Compulsory Licence On Breast Cancer Drug" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.