-The Hindu Doctors’ objections to prescribing medicines by generic names fly in the face of a recent report on substandard drugs In a surprise move on April 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his government will soon make it mandatory for doctors to prescribe medicines by generic names. The decision was to ensure drug prices remain affordable and patients get a wider bouquet of options instead of being forced to...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan today urged environment minister Anil Dave to reject a regulatory panel's recommendation to release genetically modified mustard for commercial cultivation, questioning the regulatory process and claims about the plant's superiority. In a letter to Dave, Bhushan cited a Supreme Court hearing on GM crops and described India's regulatory mechanisms for such crops as "farcical". He asked Dave to "withhold" his approval to the...

-Business Standard Activists, others question yield and bio-Safety data; GM mustard can improve yields by 25-30% After many ifs and buts, the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) mustard seems to have reached a decisive phase after the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) recommended on Thursday that it be allowed.   The ministry of environment and forests will now decide on whether this herbicide-tolerant variety can become the first GM food crop to be...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India's central biotech regulator, Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), on Thursday cleared the genetically modified (GM) Mustard for commercial cultivation and recommended its approval to the environment ministry. The fate of this transgenic variety of oil-seed will now be in the hands of the MoS environment Anil Madhav Dave who may either accept it, reject it or sit over the file till the Supreme Court takes...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The World Health Organisation has announced a plan to approve generic versions of two expensive bio-therapeutic anti-cancer molecules in an effort to make them available to low and middle-income countries. It said it would invite manufacturers to submit applications for pre-qualification of biologically similar versions of rituximab, used to treat chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and trastuzumab, used to treat breast cancer. The pre-qualification process is a mechanism...