Bayer CEO says Nexavar drug is for "western patients who can afford it.”

Knowledge Ecology International

Today health advocates were shocked by the direct and appalling statements attributed to Bayer CEO Marijn Dekkers. Published in Businessweek on January 21, 2014 and written by Bloomberg reporter Ketaki Gokhale, a news story about disputes over drug patents ended with an account of the India compulsory license on the cancer drug Nexavar, and practically exploded. Dekker is quoted as saying Bayer did not intend the cancer drug to be sold to cancer patients in India, adding “We developed it for western patients who can afford it.” From the Bloomberg/Businessweek story:

In march of 2012 Natco Pharma applied for and won a compulsory licenses for Nexavar. The drug was to be sold at 97% discount. Bayer has been unable to stop the license and has appealed to the Mumbai high court.

Bayer Chief Executive Officer Marijn Dekkers called the compulsory license “essentially theft.”

“We did not develop this medicine for Indians,” Dekkers said Dec. 3. “We developed it for western patients who can afford it.”

Business Week Article: Merck to Bristol-Myers Face More Threats on India Drug Patents

Pharmaceutical companies from Merck & Co. (MRK:US) to Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY:US) face fresh threats to protecting their patents in India as a government-appointed panel prepares to evaluate more drugs for local makers to copy.

reply to post by ATSmediaPRO


Bayer needs to just drink a big mug of shut the hell up.

This is a company that infected people in France with aids. After a drug they made was found to been tainted.
They couldn't sell it here in the usa. so they shipped it overseas.
Why? So they wouldn't lose out on some profit.

I have one word here.

I think all good countries should make patents and all that slavery illegal, and scan all the drugs, and make the cheap generics, as anything else is a crime against humanity.

reply to post by grey580


The exact reason why I don't buy buyer products!

Good, shameless profiteering from big phama has to end.

Bayer, the makers of products like this:



This is why healthcare for profit will always fail the common person.

Here's the problem with drug development as it pertains to the United States. For a company to bring a new drug to market, it costs somewhere in the neighborhood of about $5-10 billion. One huge reason is the extensive testing and research needed to persuade the FDA to allow its use in patients. The drawback is pharma companies are for-profit entities, and to recoup their investment, the costs of new medications is exorbitant.

Now, the safety testing, which I admit is by no means perfect, is a by and large a good thing. I want medications as thoroughly tested and their efficacy proven as much as possible (again, I admit the process isn't perfect). But we all want them to be affordable. The question is how to we strike a balance? I have no idea.

Drug research and development is so expensive, some classes of pharmaceuticals aren't worked on nearly as much as they should. Antibiotics, which are becoming more useless with every passing day, has a very small profit margin. Thus, we may seen one or two new ones per year, if we're lucky. But, anything that can fix wrinkles in a woman's face, re-grow a man's hair, or initiate an erection can be heavily marketed and sold easily- people place a premium on their vanity.

The Bayer representative pretty much just came out and said what was already known: the wealthier populations in the West allow for medications to become dirt-cheap in the developing world. That annoys me for many reasons, but especially since there are plenty of Westerners who can't afford the medications they need. The whole system is just messed up.

reply to post by FatherStacks


I had a fling with a project manager for one of the larger Pharmaceutical Corporations...(met her in a hospital psych ward. we were both patients, but that is a tale for another day And she said the same thing. I looked at some of the work she had to coordinate and the money attached to projects was shocking. Trying to coordinate people from all around the world working on different aspects of the same drug is crazy expensive. But erection pills are what keep the lights on and the research going. Crazy amounts of money. A good deal of it goes to shmoozing like any corporation that makes money.
Agreed the system is broke.

Read or watch the G. Edward Griffin book/lectures (free on YT) about Cancer research and the origins our our modern pharmaceutical companies - the same people who gave us the joys of Zyklon-B, the Nazi gas chamber poison. These are the same people who are now financing presidential and congressional political races, and the same reason the whole system is corrupt, including the Supreme Court who decided they're just 'people' like you and me. People with billions to blow on Mitt Romney and ilk's campaigns, mind you.

The drug for rich people probably has Laetrile, high dose Vitamin C, selenium and extracts of several botanicals in it - proven cures for cancer but nonpatentable if you don't mix them up in a novel way.

The more 'they' scream about how vitamins are useless or herbals are 'dangerous' you know they're afraid. Afraid of losing market share, afraid you'll wise up, afraid you'll realize how carcinogenic their two biggies of 'standard of care' are, chemo and radiation.

Sometimes the newest and what the drug companies claim is the best is not any better then the drugs they were selling till the patents ran out.

Sometimes the newer drugs are worse in side effects.

Case in point lyrica replaced gabapentin and gabapentin is a lot cheaper and has less side effects.

Well. ... Boohooo

We are going to play Robin hood...make generic version of those drugs AND export them to Africa and Asia .. (thats why the Indian Medical industry given cheap medical tourism to westerners)

reply to post by FatherStacks


While the wealthier populations of the west pay for the research, the drug companies also have a preference to the western poor. Its one thing we can do, is apply with the pharmaceutical company and if your income qualifies, and the doctor says you have a definite need for this particular medicine, then the company gives the medicine free.

This allows them to help people in the west who have a low income, but still get the profits needed to cover the research. Most new drugs have a 20 year monopoly before it is given out for generic versions to be made. That covers the company for the research and gives them their profit before generic hits the market.

It has been traditionally 20 years of a drugs availability before other countries get to have the generic. I understand why they do what they do, and I understand it is about research and profit for that research.. I give them that.

People in India or other countries have been without these drugs forever. What is wrong with waiting another 20 years? If they don't, and the research cannot be paid for because a generic hits the market too soon, why would companies like Bayer even bother?

I say its wrong of people in India, not the drug companies. If the drug companies stop doing the research because they would loose money on it, then the problem wont be someone being born 20 years to soon to be saved, but that no one will be saved.

For anyone who doesn't think there's a depopulation agenda at work... go read the OP again.

Disgusting, revolting, but exactly what we should all expect from our so-called "leaders," these "heroes" of politics and business.

reply to post by ATSmediaPRO


Go India. And what about those flu samples?

F&S