UAEM Students Launch Campaign To Drop Publicly Funded Patent Claim On Cancer Drug In India

The Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) this week launched a campaign to ask the University of California to drop its pursuit of a patent on the prostrate cancer drug Xtandi in India in order to make it affordable for patients. Xtandi sells at “exorbitant” rates in the United States, they said, a seeming violation of the licensing guidelines of the publicly funded University of California system which guarantees an “appropriate” return on taxpayer investments.

The full press release is reprinted below:

UAEM Students launch campaign to press Regents to Drop Patent Claim on Xtandi Cancer Drug in India

Yesterday, March 14, 2018, Kayla Gu, a medical student at UCLA, spoke before the University of California (UC) Board of Regents on behalf of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) and the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT). This was the second time a coalition of organizations including UC students had asked the University of California to drop its pursuit of a patent on the prostate cancer drug enzalutamide (brand name Xtandi) in India.  Prior requests made on behalf of the coalition have been formally rejected or ignored.

Ms Gu statement is included below:

“As medical students at UCLA and future physicians, we feel almost personally responsible. When we first came to medical school, one of the first things we learned was that, as future providers, we need to not only master medical knowledge, but also take on the social responsibility to promote health delivery and access. At our student-run homeless clinic, we work in underserved communities to deliver medical services to those who can’t afford healthcare, all the while the prices for essential drugs rapidly rise and our patients are being gouged by these high price tags. Xtandi is one such drug, priced at $129,000, that has become out of reach for patients here and abroad.

In 2009, the University of California adopted licensing guidelines that states that we will “ensure an appropriate return of taxpayer investments in University Research”.  Xtandi is a drug developed on UCLA’s campus with public funding from the National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense. It is now sold at an exorbitant price both in the United States and abroad. We would like to ask the Board if they will take action to uphold these licensing guidelines and ensure that our patients’ and the public’s interests and investment are protected and rewarded.

The licensing guidelines recognize that “the ability of underprivileged populations to access and afford these technologies may be constrained by price or distribution” and the University of California system has committed to “uphold our public benefit mission” and “consider such public benefit and broad societal needs when developing licensing strategies for such technologies”. While Xtandi has already been licensed to the pharmaceutical industry without such protections for pricing for patients worldwide, we urge UCLA, our institution, to not further restrict access by continuing to pursue this patent claim in India on the behalf of the companies the drug had been licensed to. As a public institution with multiple statements from the Health System and UCLA leadership on protecting health access, we hope that the University will carry out these statements by dropping this patent claim. Otherwise, the teaching we’ve been receiving in our classrooms to act on our patients’ best interests is simply words, not action.

As proud UCLA students, we believe that we are acting on our conscience. We urge UCLA to do the same by not further pursuing this patent claim in India and preventing patients from being able to access a more affordable prostate cancer medication”.

Due to the continued lack of action being taken by the Board of Regents, UAEM, KEI and UACT are now launching a sign on letter calling for students and alumni of the UCLA community along with partner organizations, to fight on behalf of the patients that cannot afford these taxpayer-funded drugs, rather than fight a legal battle on behalf of pharmaceutical corporations.

To support the campaign to ask UCLA to drop the patent claim and #takebackXtandi sign here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/students-demand-ucla-protect-access-to-drug

To learn more or to get engaged please email: administrator@uaem.org