India-Swiss trade deal on ice over pharma patents

The Swiss pharma giants have struggled to protect their patents from Indian generic drugs companies Keystone

The free-trade deal negotiations between India and Switzerland are going nowhere fast, according to the Swiss head of negotiations. Intellectual property remains the main stumbling block, especially for the pharma sectors in both countries.

In an interview published in the German-speaking Basler Zeitung newspaper on Thursday, Marie-Gabrielle Ineichen-Fleisch, director of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), was pessimistic about the free trade deal being finalised anytime soon.

“The main outstanding issues remain intellectual property protection and data security,” said Ineichen-Fleisch.

Despite the impending visit of the Swiss economics minister Johann Schneider-Ammann to India in mid-May, the SECO director is pessimistic about a breakthrough.

“The chances of this happening are low today, even though there has been progress in some areas,” she said. According to her, India had provided very good terms for the Swiss machine industry but if the deal is to go through, a satisfactory solution will have to be found for all industries.

The trade agreement between India and EFTA countries (Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland) has been on the table since 2008. Negotiations with the Indian government came to a halt 18 months ago due to elections in India. However, in spite of the business-friendly new government led by prime minister Narendra Modi, the talks between the two countries have not progressed significantly.

Pharma wars

Ineichen-Fleisch confirmed that the Swiss pharmaceutical sector was still unhappy with the text of the deal. The Indian Supreme Court’s rejection of Novartis’ attempt to win protection for its cancer drug Glivec was a step backwards, she said.

In 2012, another Swiss pharma giant Roche, lost its battle to protect its patent for the lung cancer drug Tarceva, but in January 2015 the same court upheld Novartis’ patent on the respiratory drug Onbrez.

“The interpretation of the WTO rules by the Indian courts is hard for us to understand,” said Ineichen-Fleisch.