-AFP Bayer AG said, on Tuesday, it was mulling ways to challenge a ground-breaking Indian ruling allowing a local firm to produce a vastly cheaper copy of a cancer drug made by the German pharmaceutical giant. The ruling on Monday by India's Controller-General of Patents marked the first time a so-called ‘compulsory licence' for production of a patented drug has been granted in India, known as a global generics drug powerhouse. Evaluating options “We...

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...

A non-government organisation campaigning for cheaper essential drugs has proposed an alternative pricing model that seeks to fix retail prices at the average price of all brands in a segment.  The proposal of the All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN) is being examined by the department of pharmaceuticals (DoP), an official said. AIDAN says its new pricing mechanism, which excludes brands that account for the top 20% by sales, will make...

-The Economic Times The government has allowed a local drugmaker to make and sell a patented cancer drug at a fraction of the price charged by Germany's Bayer AG, setting a precedent for more such efforts by Indian firms and heightening the global pharmaceutical industry's anxiety over the use of the controversial compulsory licensing provision.  The outgoing patent controller of India, PH Kurian, on Monday granted the country's first compulsory licence to...

In a landmark decision, India’s intellectual property office on Monday allowed Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma Ltd to make and sell a copycat version of German drug maker Bayer AG’s patented cancer treatment Nexavar. It’s the first time that an Indian company has been granted the so-called compulsory licence to market a generic version of a patented drug. The drug, patented by Bayer in India in 2008, is used in the treatment of...