[Ip-health] Indian Express: Terra pharma

[Achal Prabhala]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--
--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]








Home > Edits & Columns > Story



Edits & Columns

Terra pharma



Posted online: Monday, March 19, 2007 at 0000 hrs





Indian R&D may have to swallow a bitter pill administered in the poor=92s n=
ame





An instructively strange combination of Marxists, NGOs and big Indian pharm=
a companies will be celebrating R.A. Mashelkar=92s decision to resign from =
the patents experts=92 panel. Mashelkar had responded with alacrity to repo=
rts about a plagiarised paragraph in the report submitted earlier. A whispe=
r campaign started, loud enough to be heard in corridors of political decis=
ion-making =97 apparently the whole report was horribly compromised, a cons=
piracy, no less, by greedy MNCs to hold public health to ransom. Lamentably=
, this kind of campaign still works effectively in India, two years after t=
he patent law was changed and 15 years after liberalisation, during which M=
NCs have been shown to be just another kind of commercial entity.






With Mashelkar gone =97 he can have a valid complaint that no one who matte=
red seemed to have defended his integrity =97 and this government=92s willi=
ngness to regress on liberal economic matters clearly on the rise, it is an=
yone=92s guess what will happen to the question of changing the relevant pa=
tent provisions. The Mashelkar committee had recommended, absolutely rightl=
y, that incremental innovation be made patentable. Much of progress in phar=
ma involves significant improvements in existing products, as restricting p=
atents only to new molecules is illogical. Plus, India=92s pharma industry =
benefits hugely from such a rule. R&D costs of new molecules are dauntingly=
 large. Working on a patented product of, say, a Western MNC and devising a=
 genuinely improved version is a better alternative =97 but this is pointle=
ss if India itself won=92t grant patents on incremental innovation. The dis=
incentive can kill Indian pharma=92s potential of becoming the next big thi=
ng after IT.





Pharma companies that only have generic products will oppose further patent=
 law reform. Such self-interested lobbying is standard and should be, ultim=
ately, ignored. And equally, =91radicals=92 of various descriptions will ma=
ke a false argument about the poor=92s health. The real problem there is th=
at too little is spent on public health and only 15 per cent of that goes t=
o buying medicines. Would that =91radicals=92 campaigned about that =97 lou=
dly.



editor@expressindia.com




--
[ clip_image001.gif of type application/octet-stream deleted ]
--