Fighting cancer has just become less expensive for millions of Indian patients. More than 12 years after he electrified the pharma industry by taking on powerful global giants in his quest to supply cheap anti-AIDS drugs, Cipla promoter YK Hamied is back donning the role of a price warrior. This time, his attention is on anti-cancer drugs. On Thursday, Cipla cut prices of key cancer drugs by nearly 75%, an astounding,...

India joins global drug discovery league The launch by Ranbaxy last week of Synriam, a new drug to treat malaria, is an important milestone. Having made its name by manufacturing generic (off patent) drugs cheaply, India’s pharmaceutical industry has struggled to achieve original drug discovery since the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations signalled the onset of product patents in India. It began to be realised, in time, that there was...

-The Telegraph An Indian pharmaceutical company has tweaked and tested a synthetic molecule first created in an American university and developed the world's latest drug against malaria, an alternative to standard anti-malarial therapy. India’s Ranbaxy Laboratories today launched the new drug for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, after nine years of research which was partly supported by the Indian government. Clinical trials in India, Tanzania, and Thailand...

The implementation of patents Act, as last amended in 2005, raises significant issues of immediate concern to patients across the world. INDIA'S patents Act has an interesting history. Enacted first in 1911 as the Indian patents and Designs Act in the colonial era, it primarily addressed the interests of inventors, who did not want their inventions infringed upon by anyone who copied them or adopted the methods used to make them....

India's efforts to produce and supply life-saving drugs at affordable prices face challenges from multinational companies trying to “evergreen” their patents. THE average life expectancy across the globe has increased from around 30 years a century ago to over 65 years today. This has been made possible in large part by modern medicine. Never before in history have humans had access to such an array of medicines and devices to...