Prime Minister Narendra Modi with European Council President António Luís Santos da Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the signing of the India-EU Free Trade Agreement. File | Photo credit: ANI
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international humanitarian organization that provides emergency medical aid to populations in need in more than 80 countries, has written to the European Union expressing its concern over the recently announced EU-India Free Trade Agreement.
The group said the proposed restrictive provisions would have major implications for access to medicines in India and the rest of the developing world.
“We are concerned that the EU-India Free Trade Agreement may contain provisions with dire consequences for access to medicines in India and the rest of the developing world,” MSF said in a letter to the European Commission’s trade commissioner.
“It will strengthen and expand the monopoly rights of multinational pharmaceutical manufacturers at the expense of patients in India and beyond,” the group warned.
Specifically, MSF has raised concerns about data exclusivity, which could effectively block compulsory licenses, patent term extensions, enforcement and border measures aimed at stopping the import or export of goods suspected of infringing intellectual property rights.
“For patients living in India and across the developing world, these provisions could mean the difference between life and death. It is essential that generic competition remains possible in India. We urge you to ensure that negotiations conducted by representatives of the European Commission on behalf of the European Union do not include intellectual property proposals that go beyond the requirements of the TRIPS Agreement,” said Tido von Schoen-Angerer, Executive Director of Access to the Essential Medicine Front, Essential Medicine.
MSF has been providing antiretroviral therapy (ART) to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) since 2000.
It said that while informal and formal talks between India and the EU towards the signing of a free trade agreement are nearing completion, the group noted that India plays a key role in supplying affordable generic versions of medicines used in the developing world.
For example, MSF sources more than 80% of its antiretroviral drugs used in its AIDS projects around the world from India. The availability of fixed-dose combination therapy (or three-in-one pills) has revolutionized AIDS treatment, as we have witnessed firsthand in our own programs.
Providing this form of treatment tailored to resource-poor environments in developing countries was possible only because there were no patent restrictions in India on combining these drugs into a single tablet. Currently, 92% of people living with HIV on treatment in low- and middle-income countries use generic antiretroviral drugs manufactured in India.
Since 2005, India has developed a patent law that balances the need for patients to have access to life-saving drugs at affordable prices with the profits of pharmaceutical companies.
Specifically, India’s patent law allows patient groups and other interested parties to oppose unjustified or abusive patenting through pre-grant or post-grant objections, and by setting stricter patentability criteria has prevented a practice known as evergreening, where corporate monopolies can be extended indefinitely.
“We are concerned that the EU-India FTA may contain provisions that undermine progress on access to drugs and represent a significant step backwards, with dire consequences for access to medicines in India and the rest of the developing world,” the group said.
It also said that some of the provisions included in the negotiations seek to limit, and in some cases completely block, generic competition. “Generic competition has proven to be key to driving down drug prices, thereby improving access to drugs,” the letter said.
Published – February 5, 2026 12:14 PM IST
