Dogged by row over Beagles, Ranbaxy holds its ground

“Despite adhering to all laws currently in force and following all procedures laid down by the various Government bodies,” Ranbaxy’s statement says, “we have been unnecessarily dragged into a controversy which has arisen due to lack of clarity as to the authority and charter of the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (PCSEA).”

Ranbaxy’s statement quotes Section 17 of chapter IV dealing with animal experimentation from the Prevention of Cruelty to AnimalsAct 1960: “Duties of the Committee and power of the Committee to make rules relating to experiments on animals – (1) It shall be the duty of the Committee to make all such measures as may be necessary to ensure that animals are not subjected to unnecessary pain or suffering before, during or after the performance of experiments on them and for that purpose it may by notification in the Gazette of India and subject to the condition of previous publication, make such rules as it may think fit in relation to the conduct of such experiments.”

Dr Sudershan K Arora of Ranbaxy’s New Drug Discovery Research wing says that new drug/vaccine discovery programmes using experimental animals are done by the National Institute of Immunology (New Delhi), Central Drug Research Institute (Lucknow), IICT (Hyderabad), and other Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) laboratories.

“In the context of the WTO agreements which come into effect in January 2005 and the new IPR regime, it is imperative,” Dr Aroratold The Indian Express, “that the Indian Government lays down a clear-cut policy and issues clear guidelines covering all aspects of new drug discovery and, more importantly, covering all the requirements of the various Ministries, Government Departments and specially constituted committees.”

“The efforts of Ranbaxy have been fully supported by the Indian Government’s research institutions. Today there are several drug discovery programmes under way which are a result of collaborative research between Government and industry. Our own company is currently engaged in seven projects with CSIR and 14 projects in several academic institutions,” Dr Arora said.