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September, 2006 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India |
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Centre To Enhance RandD Fund Corpus For Pharma Industry
The Union government is planning to enhance the corpus of the Rs 1500 million research and development fund for the pharmaceutical industry. In this recent meeting with pharma industry captains, the Union minister for chemicals, fertilisers and steel Ram Vilas Paswan has asked the industry to come up with detailed proposal for the same. In 2000, the centre had set up Rs 1500 million RandD fund for the pharmaceutical industry.
The Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance`s secretary general, DG Shah has asserted that in the developed countries, on par with the industry spending, the governments are pooling equal amount of funds for the development of RandD activities in their countries. However, in India, we don`t have such a practice.
As Paswan has taken some initiatives to enhance the corpus of RandD fund and asked the industry to give its suggestions and views on the same, IPA has warned the government that the Patent (Amendment) Bill, if passed in its present form, could lead to almost 15 percent of the medicines now marketed in India coming under product patents. This could lead to a chaotic situation as several companies will be forced to withdraw their brands form the market and the innovator company will be able to jack up the prices, hurting patents.
IPA has also urged the government to introduce two bill to ensure that the interests of the country and the consumer are protected – one would be to exclude patentability of the new form of previously patented compound and the other would be to allow a provision for pre-grant application. The absence of such provisions could lead to grant of frivolous patents and endless litigation.
Date: 28-Oct-2004
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