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Switzerland Receives Request For Compulsory Licence On Breast Cancer Drug

01/02/2019 by Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment

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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.

 

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Creative Commons License"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.

Filed Under: IP-Watch Briefs, IP Policies, Language, Themes, Venues, English, Europe, Health & IP, Human Rights, Lobbying, Patents/Designs/Trade Secrets, Regional Policy

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  1. Brazilian Health Minister’s speech on compulsory licenses exposes a disconnect with the world - Make Medicines Affordable says:
    07/08/2019 at 9:41 am

    […] Switzerland, the activist group Public Eye requested a CL for the medicine Perjeta, a so-called ‘blockbuster drug’ of the Swiss Roche laboratory used in the treatment of breast […]

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