-The Telegraph New Delhi: Health and patients' rights groups have called on the government to resist American pressure that they claimed was aimed at weakening safeguards in India's patent laws that allow drug companies to sell inexpensive generic medicine. Health activists representing patients' rights said they were concerned that bilateral talks on intellectual property rights, to feature during US President Barack Obama's visit to India beginning this weekend, may be rigged against...

-Down to Earth US actions jeopardise India's pro-poor patent laws that promote generic drugs production, says online global petition More than 75,000 people have requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to succumb to US pressure on Intellectual Property Rights (IP). With trade and intellectual property rights featuring prominently in the agenda of US president Barak Obama's India visit, civil society groups have expressed concern that talks on these issues are designed to make...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government may negotiate prices of patented medicines with their manufacturers before allowing pharmaceutical companies to launch them in India. The move, a first of its kind, is also likely to be applied on patented drugs that are already being sold in the country, an official source said. An inter-ministerial committee, evaluating the mechanism to negotiate prices of patented medicines, has recently sought detailed information about...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's patent regulating agency today rejected a US company's patent claim on a drug to treat hepatitis C, raising hopes that generic drug makers could now produce cheaper versions of the medicine. The Indian patents Controller has denied a patent to sofosbuvir from Gilead, a US biopharmaceutical company that had last year pledged to make the oral drug available in India and 90 other developing countries at $900...

-Livemint.com   The interim injunction has been granted till Cipla's application for compulsory licensing of the drug is decided   New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Friday restrained homegrown generic drug maker Cipla Ltd from making and selling Indacaterol, a drug claimed to be patented by Swiss pharma company Novartis AG. Indacaterol is a respiratory drug used in the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and is sold under the brand name Onbrez. Please...