SC ruling on Novartis victory of humanity over commercial consideration: Bhaskar Narayana, Natco Pharma

In an interview with ET Now, Bhaskar Narayana, Finance Director, Natco Pharma, shares his views on the SC judgement on Novartis’ cancer drug patent issue. Excerpts:

Your reaction to this announcement and what this means for generic makers in India?

Basically this stands out as a unique victory of humanity over commercial consideration, to put it very plainly. I think the element of innovation which deserves protection has been plainly lacking in the case of Novartis, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court. We are yet to see the full judgement, but nevertheless this is our immediate reaction.

In a nutshell how would this if at all impact Natco Pharma on the financials in the immediate front because I am guessing you get some forwards into drugs that you would seek to sell if not selling already?

No, no, we are already selling it. We are selling it from a long time, if I am not mistaken from 2003 onwards. So t has no effect on the company as such.

What is the market for this drug and how much does this benefit on an annual basis?

We garner about 20-23 crore of sales annually from this one drug.

Could you just highlight once again for the benefit for our viewers the price differential for this drug in the market?

The price differential is almost 10 times. The Novartis drug is ten times costlier than our own drug. So it simply puts that parity because Novartis has been selling it at international prices all over the world and whatever price it sells in the US, it sells at the same price in India, but our drug has been almost 90% cheaper than the Novartis drug.

Will you go ahead with the Glevi9c generic version at this point?

There is no question of it because we are already in the market where we have been selling this drug from a long time and we continue to manufacture and sell it. We have no legal restriction at all. The only thing is that our stand has been vindicated by the Supreme Court judgement.