Ron Somers leads Sun, Ranbaxy, and other major drug companies.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: A number of Indian generic drug manufacturers have come together to create the “Coalition for Affordable Care,” which will exist almost exclusively to fight against the anti-India stance that several high-profile American drug companies have adopted in recent months.
The announcement of the Coalition for Affordable Care’s (CAC) formation was announced on Wednesday, and represents a large number of Indian pharmaceutical companies that have recently come under the gun from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). India First Group, which will oversee the coalition, put out a press release on Wednesday outlining the participants and goals of CAC.
The major player is the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, which is comprised of Indian generic drug heavyweights like Sun Pharmaceutical, Lupin, Dr. Reddy’s Labs, Zydus Cadila, and Ranbaxy, among others. These companies have alleged that “Big Pharma,” back by special interest groups within the US, are on a mission to downgrade India – something that CAC intends to stop.
“The time has come to let the truth be known on Capitol Hill, in the halls of government, and across America, that Indian and U.S. manufacturers of generic drugs are producing high quality medicines at a fraction of the price of branded pharmaceuticals,” said India First Group’s Ron Somers, the former President of the US-India Business Council, in a statement.
CAC and Somers specifically call out special interest business lobby PhRMA for being behind the repeated attacks on India’s pharmaceutical industry. PhRMA is chaired by Pfizer’s Ian Reid. Other organizations named in the press release are theGlobal Intellectual Property Center of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers, which has had its own back-and-forth history when it comes to advocating economic ties with India.
“Short-sighted tactics and negative campaigns may have worked to preserve market share for these special interests previously, but history is not on their side,” said Somers.
CAC cites the fact that Indian generic drug companies were the ones chosen to help provide aid to Africa during the George W. Bush Administration, citing it as one of the “triumphant humanitarian success” of those eight years.
The Coalition will also seek to invite companies, investors, and individuals that are “seeking to lower costs, pension funds, large employers, doctors, healthcare professionals – essentially all generations of Americans born after 1930 who now find themselves unable to afford basic healthcare.”