I’ve noticed that in the last 2 months only ~12000 additional people signed this. Quite slow and reaching the target of 275000 signatures seems mission impossible.

I was wondering whether Fixhepc might tweet this petition? It would be a simple gesture of brotherhood that might help.

Cheers,
RHF

I missed this the first time around so just signed the petition. There might be others on this site who will sign now that it has been bumped again.

Hi Vororo,

Thank you, sounds challenging, I look forward for the outcomes.

Do I understand correctly that there will be a public hearing? Meaning anyone is allowed to attend the session?
Cheers,
RHF

Hi Vororo,

I just visited the EPO website and saw the calendar about the hearing taking place in Munich.
Even more, I could see also the application number and the what I think it is “the basis of the dispute” : https://register.epo.org/application?number=EP08732818&tab=main , where the title of the application “….. NUCLEOSIDE PHOSPHORAMIDATE PRODRUGS”.

So…. I think it is going to be a long “chemical” hearing. For a simple citizen like me, completely outside the field of chemistry, if they are going to talk about formulas and substances ….. it will be kind of boring.
In any case, I really would like to understand the arguments of Gilead when it says that Sofosbuvir is innovative and deserves a patent and the arguments of the others which claim that Sofosbuvir is not so innovative as it is based on previous known knowledge. I’ve read the information published by I-MAK and the Indian patent rejection from 2015 about sofosbuvir, however I fear that for a non-chemist person, the arguments why Sofosbuvir is not so much an innovative drug are not very clear. And because of this low understanding about the degree of innovation in Sofosbuvir, people might easier believe whatever Gilead will claim.

By making a parallelism with the auto industry, I would imagine that Sofosbuvir’s case looks like the case when a car manufacturer is patenting the newest automatic 2-clutches gearbox of a car, but instead of patenting that specific type of gearbox, it is patenting ALL types of automatic 2-clutches gearboxes, although other companies have already designed or are in the process of designing similar gearboxes. Therefore all other car producers are forced to use the gearbox from Gilead only. When speaking about drugs, yes, we do talk about chemical formula which for many of us is perhaps rocket science, however things cannot be much far away from the example just illustrated. In the end, there are chemist and specialists in other companies as well, not only by Gilead.

People need to really understand with a simple language this issue with the patent of Sofosbuvir and the degree of innovation, if any, it contains,

Hopefully more information will be available not before the hearing, rather after the hearing.

BR
RHF

Every day that passes I like Twitter more and more.
[strike]Here are some nice pictures from Germany with posters on the streets depicting the situation of expensive drugs (courtesy Ärzte der Welt on Twitter):

https://mobile.twitter.com/aerztederwelt/status/782498355150778368/video/1%5B/strike%5D

I could not post here the pictures from Twitter, however a screenshot from the Facebook page looks like below:

The text of the invitation says :
“Come next Tuesday, 4th of October from 8.15 directly to our action at Isartor in Munich, spend 15 minutes or more and show publicly that things with the inflated drug prices can no longer continue !!”

Tomorrow will be a hot day in Munchen.

P.s. I see that the Twitter link shows an error ….
Cheers,
RHF

I’ve been trying to read with Google translate couple of German newspapers this morning.
I enjoyed reading this one: http://www.schwaebische.de/region/bayern_artikel,-Patent-auf-Hepatitis-C-Medikament-EPA-verhandelt-_arid,10538268.html
What a great “publicity” for Gile…… …
The English translation of the article is this one:
The European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich deals today about the objection to a patent on an effective but expensive hepatitis C drug. The organization Doctors of the World had challenged the patent of a US company for the drug sofosbuvir. The pharmaceutical company failed to formulate an exact formula nor a specific method of production in its documents, argues the organization. The active ingredient in turn had been earlier discovered by other researchers. The high price of the drug is based therefore on an invalid patent.

The treatment costs are depending on the country at up to EUR 60 000, according to Doctors of the World. In Germany alone, the health insurance companies are faced with cost of billions. The general aim is to enable the production of inexpensive generics. To the opposition of the organization Doctors of the World have now associated nine generic manufacturers.