Company’s Vow to Donate Cancer Drug Falls Short

When Novartis, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, set out to give away a revolutionary cancer drug to people around the world who could not otherwise afford it, the company promised that no patient who needed the medicine would go without it.

When Novartis, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, set out to give away a revolutionary cancer drug to people around the world who could not otherwise afford it, the company promised that no patient who needed the medicine would go without it.It was an incredibly ambitious pledge. Often, drug companies donate in bulk to public health systems to combat epidemic diseases like AIDS or malaria. Novartis, however, set out to build a system that would evaluate the health and finances of individual cancer patients scattered around the globe. Those who qualified would get Glivec, a capsule that combats certain types of leukemia and stomach tumors, at no cost. Experts estimate that as many as 600,000 patients most of them in poor countries could benefit. Advertisement Two years later, 2,000 patients in the United States have gotten free Glivec, which costs an average of $27,000 a year. But elsewhere, doctors and patients say, the effort is off to a fitful start one that has exposed Novartis to criticism that its charity is a stalking horse for its commercial goal of building Glivec sales to $1 billion annually. For example, in India a country that holds huge promise for Western drug makers Novartis began its donations of Glivec with a warning that it would halt the program if the government let local companies eat into its profits by selling generic versions of the drug. Hundreds of Indian cancer patients got Glivec free, and commercial sales soared, as well. But after India cleared generic Glivec for sale, Novartis made good on its threat last month, saying it would leave it to Indian companies to meet the needs of the indigent.The Glivec donations are a study in both the promise and the perils of corporate philanthropy. Across a wide span of industries, a growing number of companies are giving away products and services, entwining doing good with doing business.Drug makers, their images battered by criticism of high drug prices, have become some of the world’s biggest corporate philanthropists. NeedyMeds, an online service that provides information about donation programs, lists 213 of them in the United States alone, giving away 1,030 drugs that treat everything from AIDS to hay fever. With Glivec, Novartis has stumbled in reaching the neediest people. Its international patient assistance program run by a tiny nonprofit group that Novartis selected after established charities turned down the job has gotten the drug to just over 1,500 patients outside the United States. In the 49 poorest countries, where Novartis estimates that 9,500 patients could be helped by Glivec, the program has reached 11 people, according to the latest count. In wealthier countries like South Korea, Hong Kong and New Zealand, Novartis, meanwhile, has encouraged patients who have received free drugs to become advocates, pressing public health systems to pay high prices for the drug. One company document declared that drug donations along with media campaigns and legal tactics were part of a concerted plan to win reimbursement for Glivec.”The glorified term `patient assistance program’ is nothing but a marketing strategy,” said Dr. Arun Bal, a medical ethicist in Bombay.Novartis acknowledged encouraging patients to campaign for access to Glivec. A spokeswoman said that the internal document was probably genuine, though officials could not recall creating it. But the company denies that its program has commercial aims. It is not intended “to obtain or lobby for treatment reimbursement,” said Gloria Stone, a Novartis spokeswoman. Beneficiaries care little about the company’s motives. The family of Vasamvada Shukla, a 52-year-old woman in Bombay, had almost bankrupted itself trying to pay for Glivec, selling land it had owned for generations for the $2,769 monthly cost. Then Mrs. Shukla was accepted for the free program. “We went to the temple to pray and give thanks,” said her daughter Prachi.(Source: New York Times, By STEPHANIE STROM and MATT FLEISCHER-BLACK, 4th June 2003)