It is a myth that cancer is prevalent only in urban areas More than 5,56,000 cancer deaths occurred in India in 2010 and 71.1 per cent of those who died were aged between 30 and 69 years, says a report on cancer mortality in India, published in the March 28 issue of The Lancet. While men in the age group of 30-69 years are more likely to die of oral cancers followed...

-Economic and Political Weekly The compulsory licence for Nexavar is only the beginning of a new battle over drug prices. The grant of a compulsory licence (CL) to Natco Pharma, a relatively small Indian pharmaceutical company, to manufacture and sell the cancer drug sorafenib (Nexavar) has been rightly hailed as a major step forward for public health and the wider availability of life saving medicines.   The German pharmaceutical company Bayer holds the patent...

Says respond else face action Annoyed by the non-submission of reports regarding illegal clinical trials of breast cancer drug, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued notices to the Union health ministry and the Andhra Pradesh government. It has asked the Centre and the state government to respond within six weeks or face action. The commission had in June last year sent notices to the Union health secretary, secretary of the...

India's decision this month to produce Germany-based multinational Bayer's anti-cancer drug Nexavar, in the first use of "compulsory licensing" in South Asia, will save lives but also raises intricate questions. Under the compulsory licensing process, a government can under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules bypass a patent owner's rights after three years and order the manufacture and sale of life-saving medicines at much cheaper cost than by obtaining the medicine from...

-Reuters   Cheap generic drugs were meant to change the life of Nandakhu Nissar, whose mouth is swollen by a cancerous tumour. But the cashless and hungry 55-year-old sleeps on a pavement staring up at the windows of Mumbai's biggest cancer hospital.  "What is a generic drug?" shrugs Nissar, who has travelled over 1,500 kms (900 miles) from his home in the hope of treatment. "I have borrowed money from friends and relatives...