India says no to HIV drug patents

The Indian Patent office has rejected the claim to file patent for an HIV drug, giving the rights for Cipla to create a generic version of the drug.

Indian pharmaceutical companies are excellent in creating generic versions of any drug. We possess very capable organic synthetic chemists who can figure out how to make an existing drug as cheap as possible. Some might call this jugaad technology but truthfully, we need these generic drugs.

One of the reasons that the cost of a drug goes up is because of patent. Yes, it is very expensive to do research and discover new drugs but the companies also push up the cost because they lock up the method to make the drug under the guise of patent.

Oh, we need patenting laws. I am not saying that we do not need to protect inventions. But it is a thin line when it comes down to medicine. There are poor people in this world who need medication when they fall ill. But very often the drug price is exorbitantly high. So what do we do?

Cipla and other Indian pharmaceutical companies are the life-savers as they create generic drugs and sell them cheap. I, at least, do not believe that we need patents for life-saving drugs. These are medicines that should be available cheap to people who need them.

There is a flip side to all this. While most pharmaceutical companies abroad have an active research program running, the Indian pharmaceutical companies have almost no worthwhile research program to discover drugs.