By Merith Basey | Executive Director, UAEM North America
Thanks to support from donors like you, in the last three months, UAEM's newly launched #TakeBackXtandi campaign has been making headlines and increasing pressure on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), urging them to drop their patent claim on a life-saving prostate cancer drug developed at the university with tax-payers dollars.
Although this drug (brand name Xtandi) does not have a patent in India where prostate cancer is among the top ten types of cancer, UCLA has now filed a patent claim with Delhi High court, obstructing the introduction of an affordable generic competitor. In other words, UCLA's actions would prevent many cancer patients from accessing a life-saving medicine. This is alarming in that UCLA, which developed the drug with public funding, is now acting at the behest of pharmaceutical corporations rather than to the patients this drug was intended to treat.
Further, due to decisions made by the university the drug is already being sold to patients in the United States for $147,000 per annual treatment - which is more than two to four times the price in other high income countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom.
UAEM students however have been taking a stand. Kayla, a medical student from UCLA, spoke up at the Board of Regents meeting in March and signatures from individuals and organizations on an online petition have been growing (link included below). This past weekend we held a teach-in and panel discussion on the UCLA campus to rally support from students and faculty. Expect to hear more about this campaign as it builds across the campus through student organizing and off campus in the press! (You can read more about how UCLA is doing Big Pharma's dirty work in the accompanying links).
Thank you for your continued support of student-driven advocacy, it makes all the difference.
Links:
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