A FIGHTER FOR ALL HUMANITY!!

Here is the excerpt of the interview I had over mail with Tahir Amin, Co-founder of I-MAK,which is an organization that is trying to fill up a void in the existing landscape by consolidating legal and scientific expertise, usually housed in the pharmaceutical industry, to act in the public interest



Me: Tahir Amin in 140 characters….
Tahir Amin (TA): Perseverance, determined, rigorous, creative, artful, passionate, honest, sporty, spiritual, philosophical, with a thirst for knowledge.

Me: Could you tell us about your childhood and educational background?
TA: My parents left Pakistan in 1962 and arrived in England as economic migrants. The youngest of 3 children, I was born and raised in a small working class coal mining town called Doncaster in the county of Yorkshire, England.

My father worked in the same factory in Doncaster doing manual labour work for 35 years, my mother a homemaker. Neither had more than a basic education, with little knowledge of the English language.

Doncaster was pre-dominantly a white working class town. Racism and skirmishes at school were par for the course. From a young age I had a love for football (soccer) and would spend all my spare time and more playing the game. At school I was academically in the top part of my year and excelled in all sports, including captaining the school football team. However, as I began to focus more on football and seeking an apprenticeship with a professional football club, my grades started to suffer. The drop-out rate at my comprehensive school was high and many of my classmates spent time in prison at one time or other after school.

I decided after completing my GCSE’s (at the age of 16) to leave school and go to a local college to do my A-levels (entrance exams for University). I still harboured ambitions to play football professionally, but started to get interested in legal studies. Eventually getting to University became my priority, where I got my law degree and post-graduate degree. I still managed to play football semi-professionally during University.

Me: What is I-MAK all about?
TA: I-MAK is a team of lawyers and scientists increasing access to affordable medicines by making sure the patent system works.
We believe:
•The patent system was designed to balance innovation in medicines and the dissemination of new treatments to society.
•The current patent system disproportionately represents and upholds private interests over the public good. This can and must change.
•Such change should be informed by patients' needs.
•Armed with the best evidence, our lawyers and scientists are giving the public a voice in a system that impacts their health and lives.

Me: Can you tell us about the experiences that have led you to start I-MAK and what’s innovative about it?
TA: For me it started when I was working as a corporate intellectual property lawyer. I began to see how companies were using their financial muscle and influence to privatise goods, information and even language that should be in the public domain in order to control the knowledge economy and gain profit.

I then left the corporate world to see how intellectual property rights (IPRs) were affecting the developing world. I went to India and worked with a local NGO researching IPRs and the public interest. Whilst I was there between 2004-2006, the Indian Government was pushing through a new patent law that would give companies monopolies on drugs. Knowing how this could affect prices of medicines (having seen prices skyrocket in other developing countries that had implemented new patent laws) I worked with HIV/AIDS patients, local NGOs to ensure the new law took into consideration patient needs. Seeing HIV/AIDS and cancer patients not being able to afford medicines because of IPRs, or some even passing away, made my Co-Founder (now my wife who I met in India working on these issues) and I realise we needed to do more.

So we started an intervention to file legal challenges at the Indian Patent Office to prevent patents being granted for drugs that were not merited on legal and scientific grounds. For the first time we had created a group of actors who were intervening in the patent system with respect to pharmaceutical products.

Although we continue these patent challenges and have been successful, we knew we needed to reach more countries and people. So we have decided to use the biggest public space to do this, the internet. We are building an open source database that will make transparent patent information on drugs (something which is a huge problem as companies like to keep this information as secret as possible, even though it should be public). The database will also provide anyone who wants to know (e.g. patient groups government health ministers or government patent offices in under-resourced developing countries) with evidence and information which can be used to challenge a patent on a drug which is not merited. As part of the project we intend to make available scientific literature relating to drug patents that is usually only available through expensive subscriptions to publishing houses – which many people in the developing world can’t access. By doing so, we want to make knowledge and information on pharmaceutical patents freely available while at the same time make access to medicines affordable.

Me: When does a patent become an impediment to access essential medicines?
TA: A person/company, who is granted a patent for an invention e.g. a compound for a medicine, gets 20 years exclusivity to be the only one to produce and market the invention. As patent rights are territorial, companies usually file patents in each country of interest to prevent imports/exports from one market to the other.

The problem with pharmaceutical patenting is that companies deliberately file several patents on one drug (known as patent clusters), to deter other companies (i.e. generic companies who could make a more affordable version) from entering the market. Many of these patents are trivial changes to existing inventions, which if examined properly would never be granted. But because patent offices around the world from the U.S. to countries in Africa are understaffed and under-resourced, many patents are granted when they shouldn’t be. As a result, many affordable versions of drugs never come to the market and the patent holder is able set prices that the market will bear.

Me: Your comments on the need for an electronic patent database in India. How does the lack of it hinder the opposition mechanism?
TA: When we started filing oppositions in India, there was no electronic database provided by the Indian Patent Office (IPO). We basically had to trawl through thousands and thousands of PDF pages. This made our work immensely difficult.

The IPO now provides a form of an electronic database, but it is far from complete and useful. For example, you still cannot access the full patent document, the status of an application or the examiner comments relating to a patent via the IPO database. We, and others, are still pushing the IPO to do a more complete job of the database. In the meantime, we try and make as much of the information we get public.

Me: Adding to the previous question, how different is the Indian patent system from the American and European patent systems on a surface level basis?
TA: From an access to information perspective, the U.S/E.U patent systems are far ahead. One can access full patent documents, carry out complex searches and review examiners comments.

However, from legal perspective, India has better provisions in its laws to protect against patent abuse – but only if used correctly and with vigilance from civil society and generic competitors.

Me: Social entrepreneurship according to you is……
TA: Doing something that no one has done or thought possible to do.

Me: Tell us about your achievements in life that you look back with pride.
TA: Looking at my parents background, where I came from and where I am today in terms of my personal health, life, education, knowledge and opportunities – I feel a huge sense of pride.

Me: The one biggest mistake of your life and the lessons you learnt from it…
TA: Not believing in myself – something that changed about 8 years ago. Lesson learned – you can do anything you put your mind to.



Me: You have been fighting hard to achieve access to affordable medicines and you have succeeded too. What were the challenges that you had to face in this exciting journey?
TA: A lot of politics and naysayers, both in the community we work in and outside. Not earning a salary for the first two years. Sleeping on floors/couches as we set I-MAK up. Not knowing where we would live or set I-MAK up. All this whilst my partner and I were convincing our respective Hindu/Muslim parents that we were going to get married!

Me: What is that, that keeps you move ahead?
TA: That there are those who do not have a voice and we must be their eyes/ears to ensure they do not suffer injustices. That gives me the belief to persevere.

Me: Granted a boon, what would you wish for?
TA: A victory in a case we are currently involved in which could help save the lives of millions.

Me: What drew you to TED and how has it shaped your thoughts?
TA: The eclectic nature of the people that make up TED - their energy and ideas. It is inspiring to be a part of a community that is trying to improve the lot of humans and it reminds me that we all have our little bit to do. By coming together with our individual parts, the sum is something special. It also helps to know you are not alone.

Me: Your words of wisdom to youngsters dreaming to be social change creators.
TA: Always believe and do not listen to people who say it can’t be done. Always stay humble, treat everyone fairly and remember that social change starts with you first.