Rishi Sunak at the G20

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Hi John,

Today Rishi Sunak has travelled to the G20 summit in India where he’s hoping to discuss a UK-India trade deal.

A major part of the negotiations is a UK power grab over India’s generic medicines industry – with Sunak demanding more rights for pharmaceutical companies to block cheap generic versions of medicines being produced in India. This could have devastating consequences for access to medicines, not just in the global south, but in the NHS as well.

Can you take action today to tell the UK stops pushing big pharma’s demands in the UK-India trade deal?

Take action

India’s generics industry is known as ‘the pharmacy of the world’. It’s the source of affordable medicines for people in countries across the global south. Yet now the British government is seeking to scuttle this lifeline for so many on behalf of pharmaceutical giants from the global north who want to make even more money. As 120 health and human rights groups from low and middle income countries recently wrote to the UK government, its demands are an "act of global health vandalism".

Earlier this year, the Indian patent office blocked an attempt by pharma giant Johnson & Johnson to extend the patent on one tuberculosis drug, Bedaquiline. As a result, other companies are now able to make cheaper generic versions which could cut the cost of treatment by up to 80%. This is the kind of increased access to medicines that Rishi Sunak and his trade secretary Kemi Badenoch are trying to prevent on behalf of big pharma.

This trade agreement has been under negotiation for years, and as with previous deals, nothing’s been made public. We only know about the UK’s demands because a draft of the text has been leaked. The government has even pressured parliament’s business and trade committee of MPs not to visit India in the run-up to the G20 – for fear of what they might discover about the deal.

It's typical of this government to be pushing big business interests above those of ordinary people, but we don’t have to let them do it without a fight. The NHS too could be affected by this deal: with one in four NHS medicines unbranded versions from India, patients in the UK could also suffer from this government’s obsession with pushing big pharma’s interests.

Can you add your name to our demands on the UK government to back down today?

Take action

Together with campaigners in India, we are pushing back against this latest corporate power grab by Rishi Sunak’s government. Thanks for everything you’re doing.

Best wishes,
Jonathan Stevenson
Campaigner at Global Justice Now

Notes
1. Britain’s trade deal with India at risk amid row over cheap generic drugs, Telegraph, 25 August 2023
2. Letter from 120 health and human rights groups to UK government, 26 August 2023
3. Letter: Trade negotiations are appallingly opaque, Guardian, 3 September 2023

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