Drug Patent Threat Opens Division on How to Fight Back
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A dispute has erupted within the pharmaceutical industry over how to respond to a government proposal in South Africa to allow local manufacturers to copy brand-name drugs and sell them in the country at a lower cost.
The proposed policy would mirror a strategy already in place in India, which in the past two years has weakened patent protection on Novartis AG’s Gleevec and Bayer AG’s Nexavar cancer treatments.