Mulling It Over     100% FDI allowed in pharma sector through automatic route     Seven top Indian firms have been acquired by MNCs in the past six years     Fear of price rise in generic medicines if MNCs control market     Health, commerce ministries want FDI to go through approvals     PMO meeting key ministries next month to take a decision *** Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has always been firm in reminding domestic industry that their fear...

Last month, the Archives of Internal Medicine published a scathing reassessment of a 12-year-old research study of Neurontin, a seizure drug made byPfizer. The study, which had included more than 2,700 subjects and was carried out by Parke-Davis (now part of Pfizer), was notable for how poorly it was conducted. The investigators were inexperienced and untrained, and the design of the study was so flawed it generated few if any...

Rs 3 lakh – that's the price a pharmaceutical company has paid to the family of a person who died in their clinical trial. Others weren't even this lucky. According to the Drug Controller General of India's (DCGI) records, 25 people died in clinical trials carried out by nine pharmaceutical companies in 2010. Families of five of these victims received "compensation for trial related death" — the amount ranging from Rs...

To increase transparency, India’s patent regulator will soon make public details about patented drugs which include whether domestic demand for these medicines is met at a reasonable price. Patent holders in the country are required to submit once every year the so-called working details which include the quantity and value of a product that is sold, manufacturing base, quantity of production or imports, and a statement on whether public requirement has...

Pfizer tried a new antibiotic on 200 children, allegedly without sufficient documentation. When federal authorities pressed charges, the pharma giant hired investigators to probe attorney general Michael Aondoakaa's and put pressure on him to drop the federal cases.The world’s biggest pharmaceutical company hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial drug trial involving children...