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...

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 Times of India Instead of creating happiness in the lives of farmers in adjacent villages, Adani power corporation has rendered them landless as their agricultural land is forcibly acquired by the district administration for requirement of the thermal power company. Once affluent, these farmers have now come below poverty line. Adani Thermal Power Corporation has acquired agricultural land in and around it's thermal power plant near Tiroda (Gondia). The state government gave...

-The Telegraph   Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has ordered an amendment to a state law to prevent rural co-operative banks from attaching the land of loan-defaulter farmers without government approval. The directive was issued after Mamata came across two posters by a co-operative bank controlled by Trinamul Congress leaders, which sought to auction the land of farmers who have not repaid loans. “I am assuring my brothers that nobody will go to confiscate your...

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...