-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India has outrightly rejected allegations in a US report about the country being a chief source of counterfeit medicines to the world and said it is an attack on low cost generic drugs — crucial to make healthcare affordable. The ‘Special 301 Report’ by United States Trade Representative (USTR) slammed India and China as leading sources of counterfeit medicines distributed globally with 20% of all pharmaceutical...

-The Indian Express On a suit filed by PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt Ltd, the Ahmedabad city civil court earlier this month had barred four farmers of Sabarkantha district — Bipin Patel, Chhabil Patel, Vinod Patel and Haribhai Patel — from growing and selling potatoes till April 26. Ahmedabad: Leading rights groups and individuals working for farmers’ rights in the country have sought Central government’s intervention to protect at least nine farmers...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: The US food and beverages giant PepsiCo has sued three farmers in Gujarat complaining that they have been illegally growing and selling a variety of potato exclusively registered by the company. PepsiCo claimed it has sole rights to grow them to manufacture chips of its brand - Lay's. Looking at the company's registration of the potato variety in country's Plant Variety Registry, the commercial court here last...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Around 40% of the essential medicines in India with lowest MRP are priced significantly higher than estimated production costs, an assessment by the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows highlighting the “exorbitant” profiteering by pharmaceutical companies and the scope for lowering prices of drugs. While innovative and newer drugs for cancer, hepatitis C and rare diseases are out of reach of many due to their unaffordable prices,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In what is being seen as an attempt to delay launch of low priced generic medicines, multinational drug makers have asked the government to create a registry providing information about all drug applications pending Manufacturing and marketing approval. The proposal, if accepted by the government, will help ‘big pharma’ pre-emptively challenge generic drug makers in court for allegedly infringing upon their patents and in turn blocking...