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...

-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 that could set a precedent on how life-saving drugs under patents can be made affordable, the government has allowed a domestic company, Natco Pharma, to manufacture a copycat version of Bayer's patented anti-cancer drug, Nexavar, bringing down its price by 97%. In the first-ever case of compulsory licencing approval, the Indian Patent Office on Monday cleared the application of Hyderabad's Natco Pharma to sell generic drug Nexavar,...

-The Times of India The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to 6 Andhra Pradesh ministers and 8 IAS officers on a plea alleging that the CBI was not proceeding against them despite having sufficient evidence that they helped former Congress leader Y Jaganmohan Reddy accumulate massive illegal assets. A bench headed by Justice Dalveer Bhandari issued the notices to the ministers and the IAS officers and sought their stands on the...

India's top business and technology schools are struggling to keep pace with the growing gender diversity aspirations of big employers in India Inc.  Women students at IITs have almost doubled to 11% in five years and their numbers at two B-schools - ISB-Hyderabad (29%) and IIM-Kozhikode (36%) - are inching closer to Harvard Business School (39%). Yet, recruiters complain there still aren't enough women graduates to untangle the diversity labyrinth at...