India decries US 'arm twisting' tactics over Nexavar compulsory licence
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Recent comments by the US deputy under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and deputy director of the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Teresa Stanek Rea expressing "dismay and surprise" over India's granting of a compulsory licence for Bayer's anticancer Nexavar (sorafenib tosylate), and her suggestion that approaching the World Trade Organization (WTO) could be one of the "tools in the toolkit" to remedy it, have been strongly criticised in India as US pressure tactics driven by "domestic compulsions".