Tag Archives: IP

The Government of India accepts the Mashelkar Committee Report on ‘Incremental Innovation’ – what does it really mean?

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‘The Mashelkar Committee’ re-submitted its report in March 2009, which primarily deals with incremental innovation related to Pharmaceuticals Research.The conclusion of the report on the incremental innovation reads as follows:“It would not be TRIPS compliant to limit granting of patents for pharmaceutical substance to New Chemical Entities only, since it prima facie amounts to a ‘statutory exclusion of a field of technology”.

Government accepts the Mashelkar committee Report:

It has now been reported that the Government has accepted this revised report, last week. With this the questions raised in the raging debate, whether incremental innovation is TRIPS compliant or not have possibly been answered well, beyond any further doubt.

The acceptance of this report by the Government further vindicates the point that all patentable innovations are not “eureka type” or “path breaking”. Innovation is rather a continuous process and more so in pharmaceuticals. Such type of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry is quite similar to what one observes in the IT industry, where incremental innovation based on existing knowledge is more a norm than an exception. With incremental innovation not just efficacy of a product, but many other important unmet needs of the patients like safety, convenience and ease of administration of the drugs can be successfully met.

Thus innovations whether “path breaking” or “incremental” in nature, need to be encouraged and will deserve patent protection, if they are novel, have followed inventive steps and are industrially applicable or useful.

R&D based Indian Pharmaceutical industry gains considerably:

Many Indian Pharmaceutical Companies have already started working on the ‘incremental innovation’ model. Appropriate amendment of section 3(d) of the Indian Patents Act 2005 will thus help all concerned – the patients, the industry and other stakeholders, as long as the prices of such medicines do not become unaffordable to majority of the population for various reasons. In any case, the Government has the law available within the patents Act to deal with any such situation, if arises at all.

Does section 3(d) warrant an amendment now?

Mashelkar committee categorically observes the following:

1. “It would not be TRIPS compliant to limit granting of patents for pharmaceutical substance to New Chemical Entities only, since it prima facie amounts to a statutory exclusion of a field of technology”, as stated above.

2. “Innovative incremental improvements based on existing knowledge and existing products is a ‘norm’ rather than an ‘exception’ in the process of innovation. Entirely new chemical structures with new mechanisms of action are a rarity. Therefore, ‘incremental innovations’ involving new forms, analogs, etc. but which have significantly better safety and efficacy standards, need to be encouraged.”

Thus, taking these recommendations together will the DIPP now finally conclude that Section 3(d) of the Patent Acts 2005 is not TRIPS compliant and recommend necessary amendments, accordingly to satisfy the needs of the Research based pharmaceutical industry?

Wait a minute – wait a minute:

The report also suggests:

1. “The Technical Experts Group (TEG) was not mandated to examine the TRIPS compatibility of Section 3(d ) of the Indian Patents Act or any other existing provision in the same Act. Therefore, the committee has not engaged itself with these issues.”

Will this comment make the Government conclude that Section 3(d) is TRIPS compliant, which includes ‘incremental innovation’ in general, however, with the rider of ‘properties related to significant improvement in efficacy’?

2. “Every effort must be made to provide drugs at affordable prices to the people of India”.

What will these efforts mean and how will these be implemented by the Government?

3. The TEG also recommends, “every effort must be made to prevent the practice of ‘ever greening’ often used by some of the pharma companies to unreasonably extend the life of the patent by making claims based sometimes on ‘trivial’ changes to the original patented product. The Indian patent office has the full authority under law and practice to determine what is patentable and what would constitute only a trivial change with no significant additional improvements or inventive steps involving benefits. Such authority should be used to prevent ‘evergreening’, rather than to introduce an arguable concept in the light of the foregoing discussion (paras 5.6 – 5.8 and paras 5.12 – 5.29) above of ‘statutory exclusion’ of incremental innovations from the scope of patentability.”

Will the Government (mis)interpret it as a vindication of Section 3(d), which does does not mean “statutory exclusion of incremental innovations from the scope of patentability” but has just made necessary provision within this section “to prevent the practice of ‘ever greening’ often used by some of the pharma companies to unreasonably extend the life of the patent by making claims based sometimes on ‘trivial’ changes to the original patented product”, as recommended by the Mashelkar Committee?

Conclusion:

In the re-submitted report of the Mashelkar committee, the TEG has made quite a few very profound comments, recommendations and suggestions, the implications of all of which are important to all the stakeholders in various different ways. Will the acceptance of this report, as a whole, by the Government and subsequent attempt by the authorities for its implementation both in the letter and spirit, will amount to “chasing a rainbow”, as it were?

Only time will us, how this “satisfy all” zig-saw-puzzle gets solved in future.

By Tapan Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

Is the revised Mashelkar Committee Report a ‘please all’ report, without taking any chance to ‘rock the boat’?

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After repeated request and persuasion by the Government of India (GoI) in general and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in particular ‘The Mashelkar Committee’re-submitted its reports to the GoI under the following terms of references:
Terms of Reference of the ‘The Technical Expert Group (TEG)’ Group:Following were the terms of references of the TEG:

1. Whether it would be TRIPS compatible to limit the grant of patent for pharmaceutical substance to new chemical entity or to new medical entity involving one or more inventive steps.

2. Whether it would be TRIPS compatible to exclude micro-organisms from patenting.

Today I shall restrict my comments only on the point 1 of the terms of reference. Keeping this mind, let me try to analyze what various stakeholders had expected from the report. Against those expectations, what the report has actually articulated. And how have all these comments/ recommendations been able to keep almost all the stakeholders, with widely varying expectations, reasonably happy.

Why is the revised report a ‘please all’ report?

The key stakeholders who were interested in the revised report are as follows:

A. Research-based pharmaceutical companies who expressed concerns on the patentability of ‘incremental innovation’.

B. The Government of India (GoI) who may not be keen to revisit section 3(d) of the Indian Patents Act 2005, at least for now.

C. All voices supporting price regulations for patented products, in some form, the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) being one of them.

D. Domestic generic pharmaceutical companies who want safeguards within Indian Patents Act 2005 against ‘ever greening’ of patents to ensure that there is no delay in launching generics after patent expiry.

Well crafted and well reasoned revised report from the TEG has been able to please all these stakeholders, to a great extent, which I shall analyze hereunder:

A. Expectations of the Research-based pharmaceutical companies from the report:

The research-based pharmaceutical companies seem to have expected that the report will recommend in specific terms that Section 3(d) of the Patents Act 2005 is not TRIPS compliant, as it restricts patentability of ‘incremental innovation’.

What the report actually says:

- “The Technical Expert Group (TEG) concludes that it would not be TRIPS compliant (Article 27 of TRIPS) to limit granting of patents for pharmaceutical substance to New Chemical Entities only, since it prima facie amounts to a statutory exclusion of a field of technology”.

- “The process of innovation is continuous and progressive leading to an ever extending chain of knowledge. Innovative incremental improvements based on existing knowledge and existing products is a ‘norm’ rather than an ‘exception’ in the process of innovation.”

“The TEG carefully examined the flexibilities allowed under the TRIPS Agreement to the member states (especially Articles 7 & 8 ) and also as a consequence of the Doha Declaration. The detailed analysis and reassessing provided in the report has led TEG to conclude that it is debatable as to whether national interest or the flexibility allowed under the agreement to member states would be accommodated by such ‘statutory exclusion’ of an entire class of (incremental)inventions.”

Very cleverly dodging the section 3(d) issue, the report supported the argument of the research-based pharmaceutical companies that ‘incremental innovation’ in pharmaceuticals cannot summarily be kept out of the criteria of patentability.

B. Government of India (GoI):

The GoI wanted to keep section 3(d) unchanged, till some sort of stakeholders’ consensus is arrived at in favor of its amendment, if at all.

What the report actually says:

“The TEG was not mandated to examine the TRIPS compatibility of Section 3(d ) of the Indian Patents Act or any other existing provision in the same Act. Therefore, the committee has not engaged itself with these issues.”

The TEG with this comment keeps the GoI satisfied, as the lawmakers are of the view that section 3(d) is not against incremental innovation. They believe, section 3(d) helps to avoid ‘frivolous’ innovation and ‘evergreening’ of patents by ensuring that all patentable ‘incremental innovations’ have ‘properties leading to incremental efficacy’. The revised TEG report, some people argue, vindicates this important point.

C. All voices supporting some form of price regulations of patented products, which include the DoP.

Both the DoP and other stakeholders want to keep the price of patented products under GoI control.

What the report actually says:

“Every effort must be made to provide drugs at affordable prices to the people of India”.

Thus the report satisfies the proponent of ‘affordable prices’ for patented products

D. Domestic generic pharmaceutical industry:

A large majority of the domestic generic pharmaceutical companies is of the opinion that most ‘incremental innovations’, are usually attempts to ‘evergreen’ patents for sustained commercially monopoly over the products for a much longer period of time than what it should have been otherwise. Hence patentability for ‘incremental innovation’ is to be restricted by law.

What the report says:

“TEG recommends that every effort must be made to prevent the practice of ‘ever greening’ often used by some of the pharma companies to unreasonably extend the life of the patent by making claims based sometimes on ‘trivial’ changes to the original patented product. The Indian patent office has the full authority under law and practice to determine what is patentable and what would constitute only a trivial change with no significant additional improvements or inventive steps involving benefits. Such authority should be used to prevent ‘evergreening’, rather than to introduce an arguable concept in the light of the foregoing discussion (paras 5.6 – 5.8 and paras 5.12 – 5.29) above of ‘statutory exclusion’ of incremental innovations from the scope of patentability.”

Many will believe, with the above recommendations in their revised report, the TEG also meets the expectations of the domestic generic pharmaceutical industry, on this contentious issue.

Conclusion:

The revised report of ‘The Mashelkar committee’ has definitely addressed its terms of references, pretty well. However, being ‘advisory’ in nature, the report was expected to be more specific, unambiguous and directional. Unfortunately, the comments/recommendations are neither specific without any ambiguity nor directional in nature; unless, between the lines the ‘please all’ report suggests its agreement with all stakeholders in unison, with perfect balance and elan, without making even a slightest attempt to ‘rock the boat’ in any manner, whatsoever.

By Tapan Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

Innovation, IPR and Indian Pharmaceutical Industry – a growth formula is brewing.

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Innovate or perish:Many of us expect that ‘tomorrow’ will be a ‘mega today’ and prefer to run our business more or less the same way, as what we are doing today. At the same time the global market keeps us sending, in very small measures though, but definite and continuous signals of change. As we move on, we realize that ‘tomorrow’ will not be a ‘mega today’, just as ‘today’ is not a ‘mega yesterday’. To meet such challenge of change squarely and realistically, we need to embrace a culture of ‘continuous innovation’.Therefore, the name of the game, while competing within the globalised economy is “continuous innovation”. An innovation, as we know, is more than a novel idea. It is, in fact, the process of translating the novel idea into reality.

Like other industries, the pharmaceutical industry in India will also have to innovate with cutting edge ideas, convert them to innovative and implementable business models, which in turn would help these companies to remain competitive in the market place. The innovation, which I am talking about, extends beyond Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).

While innovation is an absolute must to remain and grow the business, having patented products and marketing these brands effectively are desirable and not a ‘must do’ in the pharmaceutical industry of India.

Many would like to ‘stick to knitting’ and innovate:

Indian Pharmaceutical Industry is now an internationally acclaimed player in process development, contract research, manufacturing and domestic marketing skills. The Government of India created this environment for the industry through amendments of the Indian Patents Act 1970.

During post product patent regime in India, there is no dire need for the entire domestic industry to shift its focus from world class process development skills to new molecule development skill. On the contrary, the strengths acquired by the domestic industry in such skill sets should be further honed, to utilize benefits from opportunities that arise out of basic R&D processes. Some of these are collaborative activities with the multinational companies (MNCs) to create a win-win situation in areas like, contract research, clinical development, contract manufacturing and domestic marketing of in-licensed products.

The domestic pharmaceutical industry should therefore adopt strategies like manufacturing off patent products, like recent collaboration between Aurobindo Pharma and Pfizer, Jubilant Organosys with French company Guerbet, for distribution of its nuclear medicine products in Europe. ‘Financial Express’ dated March 13, 2009 reported “Eli Lily seeks partner for Indian TB initiatives.

Such opportunities will keep on coming, may be more frequently and more in number, especially when global innovator companies take more interest in the generic pharmaceutical business, like, Novartis, Daiichi Sankyo, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi Aventis etc.

To grab such opportunities, the strategy of ‘stick to the knitting’ with continuous innovation is expected to help the domestic pharmaceutical companies immensely.

IPR regime – emerging opportunities:

Discovery Research:

While above approach will help many small and medium sector enterprises, many large pharmaceutical companies and research boutiques in India are investing significantly to discover New Molecular Entities (NMEs). It has been reported that by 2011, at least two Indian pharmaceutical companies are planning to launch their NMEs.

Biotech Research:

Research in the field of Biotechnology is rapidly evolving, especially in the areas of diagnostics, vaccines, cellular and molecular biology. It is heartening to note that for doing stem cell research National Institute of Health, USA, identified Reliance Life Sciences in Mumbai and the National Institute of Biological sciences in Bangalore to receive state funding from the USA. Both these two organizations entered into contracts to supply embryonic stem cells to the US based researchers. Moreover, in the field of ‘Biometrics’ raw clinical data are now being transmitted to the specialists in India for their scientific evaluation.

It has been reported that in the developing countries of the world malaria afflicts about 300-500 million population and kills 1-3 million of them. Malaria also allows some fatal genetic illnesses, like sickle cell anaemia to thrive in the gene pool. Hence a vaccine developed for this disease through Indian biotech initiatives, would indeed be a great boon for the developing countries of the world.

Industry – Academia Collaboration:

In the Western countries, close collaboration exists between the industry and academic institutes in the field of Pharmaceutical Research. Such type of collaboration has now started developing in India too, where Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is playing major role.

An effective collaboration between the pharmaceutical industry and the academia will ensure productive use of research talents where both the parties will draw benefits. The research done by the CSIR, Indian Institute of Technology (IITs), Indian Institute of Science and various universities is expected to throw open new avenues of collaboration and partnership between industry and Academia.

Benefits of Technology Transfer and increased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI):

The new product patent regime is also expected to facilitate flow of technology and foreign direct investment in India with adequate patent enforcement mechanism being put in place. Inadequate patent and regulatory data protection are considered by the developed nations as the key barriers, which restrict the flow of both technology and foreign investments.

In these areas, India mainly competes with China and Brazil, besides other emerging markets. Degree of patent and regulatory data protection in each of these countries will eventually decide who will emerge as a winner in these fields.

The issue of ‘Access to New Innovative Patented Drugs’:

Innovative pharmaceutical products patented in India will facilitate access to the latest modern medicines to Indian population. Such medicines will help to meet the unmet needs of the ailing population. Many multinational companies like, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have already announced a differential pricing mechanism for such medicines in the developing countries.

Moreover, to improve access of such medicines to the common man, the Government of India should have robust plan to purchase these medicines, at a negotiated price, for supply to Government Healthcare Units

Improving ‘Access to affordable modern medicines’ – a challenge to the nation

There are three key elements to improve access to affordable medicines to a vast majority (650 million) of Indian population:

1. Healthcare infrastructure and delivery
2. Healthcare financing
3. Procurement price of these medicines at the Government Healthcare units

Price of patented products will not have any impact on existing medicines available in the market. However, the reality is, price regulation in some form will continue to play a key role in India. The long overdue new Drug Policy of India is now expected to come only after the new Government takes charge, post General Election of the country. The new policy is expected to articulate the details on this important subject both for patented and generic medicines, in India.

A determined and focused approach of the Government on the above three elements would effectively address the key healthcare issues of India.

Small Scale Enterprises in India – expecting large scale consolidation:

In India over 70% of the small-scale units, within the pharmaceutical industry, currently operate as contract manufacturers, either for the domestic or multinational companies. These small scale units with their low operating cost ,make the contract sourcing model an attractive proposition. Many of these small scale enterprises, are mostly catering to the export business in non-regulated markets.

The demand for high quality standard by the drug regulatory authorities of various countries is fast increasing. It is, therefore, essential for these units to make significant investments to qualify for such stringent quality requirements. Some units would be able to invest enough to meet such regulatory standards. However, the cost of production for those units, which will invest towards facility up gradation is expected to increase significantly, leading to fierce cut throat competition. In a situation like this, we can expect to witness a large scale consolidation process within the industry.

Intense competition from China – cannot be ignored:

Globalisation of the markets could lead to significant dumping of products in different countries. Such a situation may adversely affect the cash flow of business, making the domestic industry highly vulnerable. Currently, Indian manufacturers are facing intense competition from China, in Pharmaceutical Intermediates (PI) and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) segments. This is mainly because China has a much better economies of scale in manufacturing, which gives them a pricing edge over their Indian counterparts.

PI and he API manufacturers in the small scale enterprise segments of India have already been very adversely impacted, leading to closure of many units in various states like, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat.

Conclusion:

The issue of a robust world class patent regime in India has sparked off an intense debate with a heavy dose of acrimony. The key areas of concern of various stakeholders are as follows:

1. General public: inadequate access of affordable modern medicine to the common man
2. Domestic generic industry: overall industry growth and to some extent its survival
3. The Government of India: combination of 1&2

After many years of tough resistance mainly from the domestic generic pharmaceutical industry, in January 1, 2005, India re-entered into the pharmaceutical product patent regime. In this article, I have tried to give a snapshot of this new regime, for a quick reading.

Despite tough competition from China and increased possibility of consolidation within small scale pharmaceutical units, overall emerging scenario in India is indeed encouraging. Imbibing innovation culture and with the opportunities available in the new IPR regime, Indian pharmaceutical industry, I believe, will be able to catapult itself to newer heights of global success.

By Tapan Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

We need to encourage the new product patent regime

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Ushering in the Product Patent Regime in India heralds the dawn of a new era. The era that vindicates not only the need to encourage, protect and reward innovation for the rapid progress of our nation but also to compete effectively, in the knowledge economy with the best in the world to establish India as a leading country with a significant share of the global economy.However, it is quite unfortunate that the patents that protect today’s innovations and drive research and development to create tomorrow’s life-saving treatments are under criticism from some quarters.India chose to follow an alternative to Product Patent regime for many years. In 1970, the Government of India amended its IP laws with a clear objective in mind to reduce the prices of medicines to improve their access to the ailing population of the country.

As a result, some drugs were made cheaper. However, the moot question that we need to address now: was it a panacea? While looking back, it does not really appear so. On the contrary, the situation remained as gloomy thereafter, so far as the access of medicines is concerned. After almost 4 decades of continuation with the above policy, around 65% of Indian population still do not have access to cheaper off-patent medicines against comparative figures of 47% in Africa and 15% in China (Source: International Policy Network, November 2004).

Children still go without routine vaccinations, though the Government has made the primary vaccination programs free in our country, for all. Even in a situation like this, where affordability is no issue, only about 44% of infants (12 – 23 months) are fully vaccinated against six major childhood diseases – tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio and measles.

Moreover, as we know, despite distribution of cheaper generic HIV-AIDS drugs by the Government and others mostly free for years, only 5% of India’s AIDS patients were receiving any drugs by the end of 2006.

The above two important examples prove the point very clearly that, addressing the issue of price alone will not help our country to solve the issue of poor access of medicine to the ailing population of India. Only a sharp focus on rejuvenation of our fragile healthcare system, healthcare financing and rapid development of healthcare infrastructure of the country by the Government or through Public Private Partnership (PPP), will help address this pressing issue.

Indian Patent Act 2005 has paved the way for innovation and hi-tech research and development within the country. Contrary to adverse forecasts from some quarters, prices of medicines have not gone up.

However, while medicines play a relatively small role in rising overall health care spending including hospitalization, it is important to ensure that individuals with large healthcare expenses have affordable access to their medicines. Thus a good affordable insurance coverage (both Government and Private) available to all Indians belonging to various socio-economic strata, together with the above measures, will help address the key issues of both access and affordability of medicines for all, in a holistic way.

The attack on patents is not really a defense of patients or the poor. Such attacks help diverting attention from the core healthcare issues, as mentioned above, which are healthcare system, healthcare financing and healthcare infrastructure. Health of our nation will depend on how well these key issues are being addressed by the policy and decision makers. Our country cannot afford to ignore that Intellectual Property is one of the keys to prosperity of a great nation like India and it should be encouraged, protected and rewarded under a robust Patent Act of the country for inclusive growth.

By Tapan Ray

Disclaimer:Views/opinion expressed in this article are entirely my personal, written on my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or any organization for this opinion.