Multinational durgmakers today hit back at their domestic counterparts over frivolous patent issue and said even the local firms were engaged in filing for intellectual rights for incremental innovations that merely improve the safety or efficacy of an already known drug.
The Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), an industry body of multinational drugmakers, said there was a fundamental lack of understanding among domestic pharma companies that plan to oppose granting of patents in India for known drugs.
“There are examples wherein Indian pharmaceutical companies are applying for patents based on incremental innovations in third markets like the US and Europe,” OPPI President Ranjit Shahani said.
He was commenting on the recent move by the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), an industry body of domestic drugmakers, to oppose all drug patent applications filed after October 2009.
IPA had said many of the patent claims made by multinationals did not necessarily enhance the efficacy of previously known drugs.
Rather, the multinational drugmakers were doing so only to extend the period of patent, commonly known as ever-greening, by tweaking the molecules a bit, terming them as frivolous.
Shahani, however, disagreed with the claims made by IPA. “The statement demonstrates once again the fundamental lack of understanding about the role of patents and how new medicines are brought to patients around the world and in India,” he said.
