With the issue of patents in the pharmaceutical industry having been a recent topic of debate, The Drug Information Associates (DIA), India organised a workshop on ‘Patenting pharmaceuticals in India’ at The Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi.
The event was attended by the policy makers, scientists, academicians, IPR professionals and entrepreneurs. The key participants included eminent personalities such as Dr Ramesh Krishnamurti, Head, Corporate Patents India, Novo Nordisk; Gabriel Kleiman, Assistant General Counsel, Pfizer Inc, US; Raghavendra Lal Saha, Former Advisor and Head Science and Society Division, National Good Laboratory Practice (GLP), Compliance Monitoring Authority, Patent Facilitating Centre (PFC), TIFAC, Government of India and Krishna Sarma, Managing Partner, Corporate Law Group, Delhi, India.
The workshop familiarised the participants with the basic theory and practice of IP regimes in an organisation and responsibilities of industries involved in intellectual property trade. Through this workshop, DIA brought to the forefront various dimensions of licensing associated with IP protection, acknowledging that with the rise in the demand for knowledge in recent times, the focus had shifted on stimulating innovations and improving technological advancements. On the occasion, KS Kardam, Deputy Controller of Patents and Designs, Intellectual Property Office said, “Our Indian companies are just beginning to realise that they also need an R&D department as merely quality control would not help. Unless spending on R&D is scaled up, it will be difficult to create new molecules. It is time to go for aggressive research and patent filing just like China and Japan.”
Sarma said, “The next stage of development for the Indian pharma sector will definitely lie in the aspect of value creation, for which intellectual property becomes indispensable. Over the next few years, it is expected that the patent laws will provide impetus to the launch of patent-protected products. Such products have the potential to capture up to 10 per cent share of the market by 2015, implying the market size of $2 billion.”
In the day-long workshop, informative sessions were held on Patent Filings, Claim Drafting and IP collaborations. According to Saha, “Protection of patents is not an end in itself but a means of encouraging creativity, industrialisation and investment. If used judiciously, it has business advantage and implications. There is no doubt the patent system has a big role to play in the growth of the pharma industry.”
As a part of the deliberations, DIA also put forth the key aspects about claim writing along with practices in different jurisdictions from EU, the US and Indian perspective. The participants were also given training on how to find right partners, know-how on licensing and the scope of India as an investment destination.
Apart from educative sessions, speakers also provided interesting insights about issues such as patent scenario in the country, current research collaboration between industry and academia, recent CL decision in India and underlying patent related issues in specific cases. Policy issues relevant to Indian scenario like patent pooling, open source innovation and India as International Search Agency were also discussed during the sessions.
Gabriel Kleiman, Assistant General Counsel, Pfizer Inc US said, “A patent system is supposed to be about creating more incentives for innovation but it is equally important that innovation reaches to the society.”
The event concluded with a panel discussion on ‘Creating the Indian molecule. How far away are we?” which saw participation by KS Kardam, Ramkrishna Subbaraman, President Multiple Sclerosis Society of India – MSSI, Gopa Kumar Third World Network (TWN) and others.
EP News Bureau — Mumbai