Facing a steep rise in raw material and interest costs, pharmaceutical companies have sought an increase in prices of regulated medicines, saying otherwise they may be forced to curtail production of certain medicines that have become unprofitable.
Stiff competition in a highly fragmented market has led the domestic drug makers to depend on brand extensions rather than new product launches to corner a market share. A market intelligence study, organised by prescription audit company ORG IMS Health, has found that one in every three brands launched in the country is a brand extension. Such products comprise 18 per cent of the Rs 28,000-crore domestic pharmaceutical market.
Ranbaxy, Cipla and other Indian drug makers are helping US retailer Wal-Mart sell drugs at low cost and boost revenue.
Apart from a five per cent share of the Indian pharmaceutical market, the purchase of Ranbaxy will take Daiichi Sankyo way ahead of others in the race among Indian companies for patent-protected drugs. A recent paper on 'Patenting Landscape in India' by Evalueserve shows that Ranbaxy alone accounts for over 23 per cent of the total medicine patent applications filed by major domestic companies in India.
Malvinder, who has made his family richer by Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion), was brought up in relative austerity. While his cousins zipped around the town in fancy cars, he would travel to college in Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses.
The medicines include tuberculosis drug moxifloxacin, antipsychotic olanzapine and valgancicloivir, a medicine often needed for HIV/AIDS patients. The groups allege that none of these drugs qualified the criteria specified under the Indian Patents Act and were given patent protection because the patent examiners overlooked the legal safeguards meant to avoid grant of patents to known substances or their mere improvements.
The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority has revised prices of 440 medicines. Around 300 medicines have seen price cuts, while the others have seen a hike, sources said. The extent of the revisions is not known as yet.
The domestic drug industry is concerned over ongoing World Health Organisation negotiations that aim to bring non-health issues, having no direct implications on the safety of a drug, within the ambit of the definition of "counterfeit medicine".
Jet Airways is all set to spread its wings to Beijing, Milan and Paris within a year. The airline currently flies to London it is the market leader on this route with a robust share of 33 per cent and Brussels, which is also its second hub after Mumbai. Jet will be operating flights to Dubai from New Delhi and Mumbai. Taking on Air India's other strategic market, Goyal also announced the date for the launch of the airline's Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco flight.
In a move to focus on its core FMCG strength, the Burman family, promoters of Dabur India, last week announced their exit from the pharma business.
A government committee is looking at going beyond mere economic considerations and recommend an essentiality-linked pricing structure, it is learnt.
A group of ministers (GoM) headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is scheduled to meet on April 30 to finalise its recommendations for a policy that would attempt to balance the interests of the common man and the industry. The GoM is also expected to give recommendations on the regulation of trade margins on all medicines, public procurement of drugs, price negotiation of patented drugs and medical devices, in addition to the legislation of new Acts.
Multinational firms, which import country-specific packs of medicines from their parent companies.The reason is that the medicines reaching Indian arms of multinational pharma majors now are the consignments for which orders were placed during December 2007, two months before the government cut CVD from 16 per cent to 8 per cent (on February 29). overseas, say they will not be able to cut prices of medicines till June.
In a move likely to influence future drug price regulation in the country, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has started a process to understand how other countries carry out this function.The authority has already studied the relevant regulatory systems in at least eight major countries. It has also finalised a round-table meeting on April 11 in New Delhi to sensitise stakeholders on the need to have an international outlook.
Novartis India is up in arms against a two-month old decision of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority to reduce the price of its flagship brand Voveran on public interest grounds. The annual sales of Voveran, the brand name for pain reliever medicine diclofenac, exceed Rs 100 crore and account for one-fourth of the company's total sales turnover. The company has filed a review petition with the chemicals and fertilisers ministry against the authority's decision.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), the nodal department that handles intellectual property rights (IPR) related matters under the commerce ministry, is launching an ambitious Rs 300-crore (Rs 3 billion) project to sensitise all stakeholders, including law enforcement agencies, scientists, companies, ministries and the general public on IPR issues.
Sixth Pay Commission has urged the government that all Indian Telecom Service (Group A) officers be absorbed in the public sector telecom service providers, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd & Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd, or sent to the surplus pool. It has also suggested winding up of the Telecom Commission saying BSNL and MTNL now provide extensive services along with several private sector operators. The report states there is no need to retain the 2400 cadre strong-ITS (Group A).
Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Ltd (Mahyco), the seed partner of multinational agro-biotech major Monsanto Corporation, has moved the Delhi High Court against a Central Information Commission order seeking details of the safety test data generated during clinical trials of its genetically modified (GM) brinjal, the first GM edible crop to be introduced in India.
358 of 413 drug patent applications for the disease in India are from top multinationals. An analysis of pharma patent applications pending with the patent office by the group, which did not wish to be identified, has put the number of cancer drug patent applications at 413. Of these, 358 came from top multinationals like Novartis, Aventis, Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, Boehringer, Roche and Abbot.
Last month, Barun K Gorain, a non-resident Indian with Canadian company Barrick Gold Corporation came to Delhi with a $10-million proposal for suggesting a viable method to recover silver from Barrick's gold mines in Argentina.
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