The purchase of country's major generic drug producers by multi-national corporations is a "cause of concern" as it may result in reduced competition and "endanger" the availability of low cost drugs,a report in a leading medical journal said. In a series of articles on Indian Health Care system in the latest edition of 'The Lancet',authors have said over the past four years alone,six major drug manufacturers in the country were bought out by foreign multinationals at a total cost of USD 10.5 billion. "These purchases are a cause for concern for the Indian generics industry; the reduced competition,which is likely to result,will endanger the availability of low-cost generic drugs in India and the developing world," the authors said. Lead author Anand Grover of Lawyer's Collective,an advocacy group,said competition from generic companies is the key to affordable drugs and access to affordable drugs has been interpreted to be part of the right to health. Grover is of the view that absence of patent protection from 1972 to 2005 helped India in becoming a major destination for supplying low cost drugs for donor-funded programmes for HIV treatment in developing countries. "This cost advantage means more than 89 per cent of the adult antiretroviral drugs purchased for donor-funded programmes in the developing world are supplied by companies in India. Low prices also allow India to provide free first-line antiretroviral treatment to 340 000 people with HIV in the country," the authors said in the paper. They claimed that governments of developing countries are under pressure from multi-national companies and are trying new methods to thwart competition from generics manufacturers. "The European Union and India free-trade agreement seeks to introduce TRIPS-plus and other measures,12 such as patent term-extensions,data exclusivity,increased border and enforcement measures,and investment-protection agreements,all of which would impede generic competition," it said. The paper said the proposed multilateral Anti- Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will increase the level of global standards of implementing Intellectual Property Rights regime and would be detrimental to the industry. "The agreement,purportedly a response to the global trade in counterfeit and pirated goods,negates the flexibilities available to World Trade Organisation members under TRIPS with respect to enforcement of intellectual property rights," they said.
