New Delhi: A decision by the Modi government, as announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech Tuesday, to waive off basic customs duty on three crucial anti-cancer drugs has been widely hailed as a patient-friendly move. But the move, which will make these prohibitively expensive drugs marginally cheaper — by 10 percent — has also led to concerns, mainly by the opposition which has pointed out that the drugs given the waiver are all by a single drugmaker. The anti-cancer medicines on which the government has announced concessions include immune and targeted therapies trastuzumab deruxtecan, osimertinib and durvalumab by British-Swedish pharma giant AstraZeneca.
“If one looks at the specific concessions on basic customs duty given to three cancer drugs, it turns out that they were made by the same pharmaceutical company,” senior Congress parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor said in the Lok Sabha Wednesday. “Why would various other costly life-saving drugs being imported into the country be overlooked for this exemption?” he had asked. This fact was also noted by some cancer experts.
Dr Ravi Mehrotra, a cancer researcher who is also associated with the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, underlined that while these three drugs have shown to improve clinical outcomes for patients, the common thread is that they are manufactured by the same company. ThePrint has reached out to AstraZeneca over email for a comment on the issue. This .