Private companies don't need to have a duty to maximize profits. It's just incredibly common. See https://watsi.org/about#values

>If a private company has the duty to maximise profits, shouldn't a sovereign state have the duty to maximise the benefits to its citizens while fulfilling its minimum international treaty obligations.

They absolutely do. But that just shifts the argument to "what policy is the right one to maximize benefits to our citizens?"

>The cost of gleevec/year is $36,000. The average per capita income is $1219[1]. If patented about 99% of people who need this drug can not afford it. Why should any state keep 99% of its people away from a life saving drug, if it doesn't have a legal obligation to do so.

You could make the same argument in any country, including the US. And yet the system is the way it is for a reason.

>Property rights are a means to an end. Even if all of Asia and Africa refused to recognize Novartis patents, they would still have enough incentive to continue developing cancer drugs.

Would they? I wonder. It's possible eventually the grey market importation of unlicensed generics would make profits too small to justify the risk, and Novartis might decide yet another pecker perker would be a better investment than a cancer drug.

Do you have a citation for that drug price (for Indians)? Another post cited a price more than an order of magnitude lower.

The article says it costs about $2,600/month. Cheaper than $36,000/yr but not by an order of magnitude.

This drug is expensive at $2600/month. A fresher software engineer salary in IT company is about $500/month. Average Indian income is way low than that possibly less then $100/month.