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.
After Singapore, Indian property developers such as Indiabulls Real Estate and Phoenix Mills among others are looking at London, German and Australian stock exchanges to list their property trusts there.
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.
The UK's Marks & Spencer (M&S) has plans to position itself as a mid-market mass retailer in India and is eyeing a chunk of its revenues from India in the next few years. M&S has severed its partnership with Planet Retail and has entered into a deal with Reliance Retail. Its existing stores will be absorbed in the current partnership eventually. M&S will be positioned as a mid-market retailer in India. It chose Reliance as it moves quickly in its line of businesses.
Gagan Banga talks about how one of India's largest NBFCs still retains the financial discipline of a start-up.
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.
Goodies and early bird discounts are not a new feature of India's real estate story, but the timing is significant. Real estate prices have climbed off their historic highs in the last six months on account of tighter liquidity and an overall decline in sentiment.
The real estate industry is witnessing a slowdown. In anticipation of rates to fall, consumers are postponing their purchase plans. Developers, for their part, are finding it difficult to access cheap credit with banks reluctant to lend to them. Both residential and retail demand has moderated though the demand for office space remains strong. Inspite of this, most property cos are expected to post reasonably good Q4 results. Builders are banking on mid-income projects.
The initial cost of the project, including land, is Rs 125 crore (Rs 1.25 billion) and the development cost is nearly Rs 1,400 crore (Rs 14 billion). The company is planning to fund the project through debt and draw more funds from Lehman if required, sources said. Recently, PLL and Lehman tied up to invest in the realty projects of Peninsula. In the Rs 700-crore (Rs 7 billion) joint venture, Lehman invested Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion).
Saffron Asset Advisors, which manages the real estate investments of NYSE Euronext-listed Yatra Capital, is now planning to launch a bouquet of funds focusing on India. The company is aiming at a total corpus of Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) in the next couple of years.Starting from real estate, the company will launch sector-specific funds such as healthcare, logistics, infrastructure, hospitality.
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.
The company has plans to open offices in the US, Singapore and other parts of West Asia such, such as Oman and Qatar in the next couple of years. "The NRI community is totally underserved. We want to tap the vast business potential arising from 2.5 crore (Rs 25 million) NRIs working abroad,'' said Kapil Wadhawan, vice chairman and managing director, DHFL.
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.
Sky-high rentals are forcing retailers to explore new ways to stay afloat. Many have done the obvious thing by shifting to cheaper locations or simply downing their shutters. But others are renegotiating deals with developers to ensure business sustainability. New deals like longer "rent-free" periods, no "lock-in" clauses in agreements and revenue-sharing deals with developers are becoming common.
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