The ordinance passed in the Indian Patents Act to make India WTO compliant, marked January 1, 2005 as the doomsday for many pharma companies, who have been surviving in the industry by manufacturing generic drugs. So far, Indians have been used to purchasing drugs at cheap prices and having a variety of drugs to choose from for the same malady. In this scenario, the article analyzes how new drugs, which evolve out of pure research in India will be accepted in the market.
Until recently India had in place the process patent, which allowed Indian pharma companies to manufacture expensive international drugs at low-costs using a different process. And this allowed the Indian pharmaceutical industry to flourish in a competitive drugs market. In fact, with all the success the industry was achieving in the last few years, it became the most alluring industry in India after the IT industry. But India's signature on the WTO agreement or Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) demanded a shift from process patent to product patent.
An article in Nature Medicine says that India is the fourth largest producer of pharmaceuticals in the world. TRIPS will cost around $700 mn in the antibiotics sector alone. The article also mentions that around 15% of the generic drugs that are in the Indian market will be withdrawn and, hence, from now on India will need to learn to live on innovations in the pharma sector. How will the India pharma companies adapt to this turmoil? |
