[Ip-health] Yahoo News (India)- Another UK analyst questions Indian drugs

[Terri - Louise Beswick]

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Another UK analyst questions Indian drugs


Sun, Oct 18 09:37 AM

Barely weeks after the government took note of the London-based
International Policy Network report that pronounced India as one of the
largest producers of fake medicines, another London-based global market
analyst, Business Monitor International, has cautioned India in strong
words to keep a check on its drug quality or suffer loss of business.

"Unfortunately, India's pharmaceutical industry is gradually developing
an undesirable reputation of producing sub-standard medicines. During Q3
09 (calendar year), regulators in the US and UK have blacklisted select
batches of drugs made by firms based here. While the scale of the
seizures was small, BMI believes the implications are huge. The quality
of manufacturing must improve, or demand for Indian-made pharmaceuticals
will decrease," says the Q4 09 update of BMI's India Pharmaceuticals and
Healthcare report released last week. This, despite the same report
projecting a healthy growth for the Indian pharma industry.

In its 10-year drug expenditure forecast model, BMI said, "The country's
$14.23-billion pharmaceutical market is estimated to reach a value of
$44.99 billion by 2018, representing a compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 12.20%. The main drivers of growth are a booming economy,
increasing access to medicines, more investment in healthcare
infrastructure and a greater incidence of chronic diseases". The growth
rate projected is in sync with a recent domestic projection of Ficci and
Ernst andYoung, which estimates that the Indian pharmaceutical market is
expected to triple to $20 billion by 2015 with a CAGR of 12.3%, and move
into the world's top 10 markets. However, the report complains that
India's intellectual property (IP) regime is far below international
standards even though it (India) is showing signs of change.

The findings of the concerned IPN and other such global reports, as
reported by FE, are being perceived by the industry and parts of the
government to be largely responsible for defaming the Indian pharma
industry and shaping the anti-Indian generics policy mindset that many
of the African countries have adopted or are in the process of adopting.
The references to seizures in the BMI report seem to be on the lines of
the anti counterfeit policy being formulated in African countries like
Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania among others which mix up the concept of branded
generic drugs and substandard drugs. "If the reference of UK incident
implies seizure by Dutch authorities, which is how it seems, the drugs
were seized for IPR violation in the transit country, not even the
destination country and drugs were definitely not substandard," said an
industry player.

India, along with Brazil, is planning to move WTO on the issue, which
remains unresolved till date. Government officials feel that such
reports with blanket statements cause a considerable amount of damage to
the image of the industry. It is the much debated definition of
'counterfeit', 'fake', 'spurious', 'substandard', that is at the heart
of such controversies. Many African, along with a few developed
countries, have included patent rights in the scope of defining
'counterfeit' and hence do not recognize branded generics as a separate
exclusive category which ensure access to affordable drug. The Indian
generic players, on the other hand suspect that this could be doing of
big pharmas which stand to lose out on business once low cost generics
capture the emerging markets, which are projected to be the high growth
areas in the future.

The IPN report also criticises India for blocking anti-counterfeit
measures at world forums such as WHO's anti counterfeit task force
IMPACT. Indian players have maintained all along that they have been
protesting against linking patent infringement with the definition of
'Counterfeit' at the forum. Indian generic countries along with some
other developing countries like Brazil are battling the issue at various
global forum.

BMI provides data, analysis, ratings and forecasts on country risk and
industry sectors for 170 markets. Their clients include multinational
companies, financial institutions, governments and academia across 140
countries, including 400 of the Global Fortune 500 companies.

Soma Das



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