-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 Indian Express New Delhi: Vegetables are the noble folk of food world, loved equally by doctors and grandmothers. Vegetarians live off them and meat-eaters are told to live off them. But in Delhi, under every crunchy leaf of radish or the shiny brinjal hide dangerous amounts of pesticides that can slowly kill, shows a new study by JNU. Pritha Chatterjee and Aniruddha Ghosal report how growers, consumers and the authorities may...

-The Hindu In a significant development for the pharmaceutical industry, the Supreme Court has rejected multinational Bayer's appeal to block production and sales of the low cost version of its kidney cancer drug, sorafenib tosylate (branded as Nexavar), by Natco Pharmaceuticals. Hyderabad-based Natco was granted the first and to date only compulsory licence (CL) by the government in 2012 to make and sell a patented drug at a fraction of the...

-Business Standard This would be in addition to 348 drugs already under price ceiling The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has capped the prices of another 52 essential drugs, in a move that could impact drug manufacturers Lupin, Cadila Healthcare and Merck. This is in addition to the 348 drugs already under a price ceiling. The majority of the 52 new drugs are antibiotics, painkillers and medicines used for treating cancer and skin...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Some multinational companies (MNCs) have been delaying the launch of life-saving drugs in India years after getting monopoly rights, while cheaper generic versions of exorbitantly-priced medicines are going off the shelves under the product patenting law. Corporates such as Japanese firm Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, US-based Bristol Myers-Squibb (BMS) and Swiss firm Novartis are deferring the launch of medicines critical for treatment of serious non-communicable diseases like cancer, HIV,...