Overview of Indian pharmaceutical industry
regulatory framework. A major drawback is that India offers no data protection (although it is provided by China, which also has a good patents protection regime and a bigger domestic market than India). A further disincentive is that drug prices on the Indian domestic market are the lowest in the world.
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Misconceptions and Facts
Several myths have been propounded by the anti-Patent lobby. Most of these are based on conjecture and are unsupportable on facts. The two most frequently employed are "High Prices" and "Impact on Local Industry". Both of these are addressed below:
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Myth of ‘High Priced Medicines after Change in Patent Laws’
A myth is propagated that after introduction of Patent Act, in compliance with TRIPs provisions, the prices of medicines will accelerate and medicines will become unaffordable for people. This fear is due to a lack of understanding of how the transition to a Patent Regime works and how pharmaceutical prices are determined.
Patents can never be awarded
retrospectively. Patents can only apply to new discoveries. The transition provisions of TRIP’s ensure that patents in India will only be granted for totally new discoveries, post 1 st January 1995. Only items for which no patent has ever been granted in any other WTO country before 1 st January, 1995 or for which no application was pending for a patent in any other WTO country as on 1st January 1995 will ever be patentable in India. This means that any 60