NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Indian drugmakers and public health activists are deeply worried that sections of the American pharmaceutical industry may use the recently announced Indo-US working committee on intellectual property rights (IPR) to force changes in Indian patent laws to further their commercial interests at the cost of the domestic industry.

Giving in to any of the US’ known demands on changes in India’s patent laws could weaken Indian generic drug industry’s prowess to provide lowcost drugs across developing countries, they say.

“Such working groups are used to deliver pressure on behalf of the US pharma industry. The US has created such IP working groups and other trade working groups in the past, and in each instance they include advisors who strongly favour stronger US-style patent protections for medicines and push for longer intellectual property protections and stronger enforcement measures to restrict generic competition in medicines,” said Leena Menghaney, South Asia regional head of Doctors Without Borders, a global public health group.