Compulsory licence can go a long way to ensure access to cheaper drugs In a momentous development, the Indian patent office issued the ever-compulsory licence in a highly contentious pharmaceutical patent case. The decision is a thumping victory for several patients and health activists who have been fighting what can only be labelled as highly inequitable pricing strategies by multinational drug firms for the past several decades. In August 2011, Natco, an...

-The Indian Express Gay rights activists today submitted in Supreme Court that criminalising homosexual acts is against constitutional values and that the law should not interfere when consenting adults are involved. Naz Foundation, an NGO working for the welfare and rehabilitation of HIV infected people, contended that homosexuals face social ostracism with gay sex being declared as an offence. Appearing before a bench of justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya, the...

India's use of the compulsory licensing provision under its patents law for the first time to make the patented cancer drug Nexavar available at affordable prices is an essential, although belated step to curb the mounting cost of drugs. The grant of the licence by the Controller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks to Natco Pharma for manufacture of the drug Sorafenib Tosylate (Nexavar) to treat liver and kidney cancer is...

The government's decision to bust the price as well as monopoly of Bayer's anti-cancer drug, through the process of compulsory licensing now opens up the field for the generic industry to follow suit and could well pave the way for the availability of cheaper drugs for lifestyle diseases.  More generic companies could invoke the compulsory licensing clause of the Indian Patents Act, following Monday's decision to allow Natco Pharma to sell...

The Centre is planning a few amendments to key education reform bills whose legislative progress has been stalled by opposition to several of their clauses. The Telegraph had reported how private educational institutions had been arguing that the “draconian” bills would make it difficult for new colleges and universities to be opened, and would threaten institutional heads with stringent punishment for minor mishaps. Human resource development ministry sources now say they propose...