India - leaders in plagiarism??

A recent report from the Commission on Intellectual Property and Health (CIPIH), appointed by the World Health Organization (WHO), claims to show that a high standard of protection for intellectual property in pharmaceuticals is hurting healthcare in the developing world.

The report recommends that "[c]ountries should seek through patenting and licensing policies to maximize the availability of innovations" -- but it does not agree with the usual understanding that reliance on the free market itself offers the greatest innovations. Instead, it states that "[c]ountries should provide in their legislation powers to use compulsory licensing ... where this power might be useful as one of the means available to promote, inter alia, research that is directly relevant to the specific health problems of developing countries."

While it shies away from a direct attack on patents themselves, the report's bias in favor of generic drugs is clear. As it notes, "[m]ore than three decades of reverse engineering "on-patent" drugs (process engineering) has made Indian companies extremely proficient in speeding generic drug development." Granted, India's new patent law is far better than having no patent law for drugs (as the country did for 30 years until recently), and Indian drug companies are playing an increasingly important and responsible role in the global market. Certainly, all would agree on the need to reduce the cost of drug development -- a concern of Western companies as much as of the patients who need their drugs.

But the report also commends India's new patent law for providing that only compounds with demonstrated "superior efficacy" may receive full patent protection, to avoid "copycat" patenting that in the Commission's view only extends patents to remove competition from cheaper generic. Even if this were true (a large and unwarranted assumption), to prove "superior efficacy" companies would presumably have to go through clinical trials -- at huge expense -- which would therefore have to begin early in the patent term. While generic manufacturers are busy preparing to market on the first day after the end of patent exclusivity, the original company is therefore effectively denied the right to enjoy the full fruits of its labor. Rather than choosing to invest the "monopoly profits" from the patent on inherently more risky new discoveries, therefore, the company would likely focus its attention on refinements to existing products, which would lead to an overall loss in innovation. So the law discourages the very risk-taking so necessary to scientific innovation.
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My thoughts on this article went far from the actual issue of generic vs patented drugs, but to something I have always felt Indians are famous for... plagiarism!
- from copying / collaborating at school from others or books
- 'Young Indian author accused of plagiarism'
- to largest generic drug company in the world 'Ranbaxy' from India

Weren't we supposed to be the more intelligent ones in the world!!