Neoliberalism in the Service of Big Pharma
The m ost precious commodities in the colonial era that allowed monopoly are Gold and Silver . The European colonialists expropriated them from the Americas using all brutal means . The expropriated wealth led to Industrial revolution . In the capitalism era commodities are created on a massive scale and sold almost globally . But the holy grail of monopoly , the most precious product that allowed monopoly is not the output of the industry , but the process of development of the product itself . The Empire / State that developed the process didn ’ t share it with other states to perpetuate its monopoly . But as technology developed and as corporates started setting up industries in other States it became more and more difficult to save their knowledge of processes . So , they resorted to wars , for monopoly , for plunder and for redivision of the world . And to settle disputes they setup the International Court of Justice . One by one came the International Organisations , all to serve imperialism , to settle their disputes and to perpetuate their plunder on the then colonies turned developing countries . The advent of complex technologies , global networks and communications proved that they can no longer prevent the escape of knowledge of processes and products that perpetuate monopoly unless enforced by laws . They made international laws to appropriate this knowledge , often called patents laws and enforced neoliberal policies for their implementation in developing countries . This accumulated knowledge built by the collective efforts over centuries by various societies is getting appropriated into private hands in the form of 4
Intellectual Property rights or Patent rights . Always it is not the intricacy of the knowledge that is of importance to the capitalist , but its necessity . The more necessary it is the more important it is to the lives , to the number of people the stronger will be the laws to protect it , ensure its inaccessibility at any cost and reap super profits . Patents as Imperialist Weapons :
Patent is an ownership , a kind of property right . But property right to physical objects creates natural scarcity , because the physical object is no more available to others , whereas extending property rights to ideas creates artificial scarcity . The commodity , the idea , is available but is made legally inaccessible . Patent gives the patentee a 20-year exclusive right over its patented product / process , but creates for the common man , the problems of availability , accessibility and affordability of lifesaving drugs . This exclusive right allows the patentee to keep the price of the drug very high .
The very core of the pharmaceutical business model is founded on this virtual monopoly created by patent protection .
For many years , W estern investors were attracted by the prospect of outsized returns in the biotechnology industry made possible by the monopoly prices due to Patent protections . Amgen ’ s initial investors received returns of almost 100-fold after only 3 years , while Genentech ’ s ( now a subsidiary of Roche which licenced Tocilizubam used in Covid treatment ) patents generated hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties .
Before the WTOs agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ( TRIPS ), national governments chose whether to grant patents on pharmaceutical products or not . Some countries such as India didn ’ t award any product patents at all , literally giving generic drugs companie free licence to copy lifesaving drugs at affordable prices . But TRIPS enforced member countries to provide both product and process patents for pharmaceutical products overriding any national laws . Countries which fail to subscribe to the common laws have to face the threat of sanctions , to be enforced through a dispute resolution mechanism .
Though TRIPS agreement provided the legal binding in favour of imperialist countries , the many struggles of the peoples of the developing countries led to small protective provision ( Doha declaration ) - the com pulsory license , often termed the TRIPS Flexibility . Even this small provision is against the will of US . So , it came up with Special 301 report to threaten developing countries never to use the TRIPS Flexibility .
Ever since its inception in the Patents Act in 1970 the compulsory licensing provision has remained an under-utilized provision . In the first four decades since the introduction of the Patents Act 1970 , no compulsory licence application was filed in India .
More than 80 % of pharmaceutical , pharma-chemical , and biotechnological patent applications recorded between 1995 – 2006 were in just six countries ( US , Japan , Germany , France , UK and Switzerland ). This clearly proves that TRIPS and Patent laws are meant to safeguard the monopoly of these Imperialist countries .
Added to the Patents are the Bilateral and regional treaties . Bilateral Investment Treaties , BITs are agreements between
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