"Pharma companies must innovate or they will perish"

Why is the drugs and pharmaceuticals industry against product patents?

There is no awareness in this country about innovation and about intellectual property protection. Indians have been exempt from product patent for many years. They do not want to innovate now.

In a way, India’s achievement in the drugs sector has been commendable. With the help of process patents we have been able to make all the important medicines in India at lowcosts. But similar success has not been achieved in other sectors. For instance, Indians can’t still set up a fertiliser plant on their own.

Our pharma industry has had 35 years of protection. But now it is time to go beyond it. For all these years, nobody tried to innovate or to become better. They were happy just copying. But now there is international pressure on us to change our laws. And as part of our WTO obligations, we are committed to introducing product patent by 2005. There is still some time. The industry should take this opportunity to innovate and discover new drugs. The Indian scientists are capable of delivering the goods.

There is a mistaken impression that we can’t carry out drug discovery because it is very expensive. Research and development of technology for existing products needs only 1 per cent of the turnover.

Nobody has actually analysed what drug discovery is all about. There are three phases: Synthesis,pre-clinical studies and clinical development. It has been well documented that synthesis is the least expensive of the discovery chain.

Of course, doing the entire chain can be very expensive. The research budget for some companies exceeds $1 billion. But this does not mean India can’t do it. We should focus on synthesis and do everything at a smaller level.

The actual path-breaking discovery does not happen very often. It happens once in two years. But what we can do is improve upon it. I have argued that this work of improvement and synthesis is within the capability of Indian industry. You can take even a freshly patented drug and try to improve upon it. These small steps will inculcate an attitude of innovation.

In 1993, I announced that I will spend Rs 10 crore every year on research for new development. Today, in August 1998, I have already spent Rs 60 croreand have done what I promised. I discovered two new molecules which can be used to treating diabetes and related problems. My earning stream has already started. I licensed my molecules to a Danish company Novo Nordisk for a sum of $6.25 million. So while I did the first part of the chain, Novo will undertake the second and third parts of it. Now it will spend about $150 million on each molecule.

After the new molecules were developed, I announced it in a leading pharmaceutical journal called Script. I didn’t have to put in a lot of effort as lot of companies approached me and I had a choice. The patent is mine, but the company will spend money on further trials.

I realise that every company can’t license. Success is never guaranteed in any situation. I could afford to write off Rs 10 crore. I told my scientists, don’t worry if nothing comes out of it. But I was confident of success. Only after it happened, that we told the world.

The research was very clearly focussed. It was targeted towardscertain objectives. There was a basket of 10 objectives which we were trying to achieve. Of these we achieved two.

Yes, and a lot of them are doing it. Many Indian companies are realising the importance of basic research. The forward looking companies like Ranbaxy started research two years ago. Others who are also doing it include Lupin, Sun and Torrent. There is a problem because there are not enough outstanding scientists in India. Also, the scientist are a bit unsure about working with the industry. They are worried about the freedom and the quality of research. They think it is not exciting enough. But this will change. I have created the excitement for them and the word has reached a lot people.

IDMA has changed over the years, but not enough. It will have to accept legal changes. It can’t make Indiasuffer for the sake of few units. What is the turnover of their companies compared to India’s GDP?

Many Indian companies are spending money on new reaserch. What happens to their new products if India does not offer patent protection. Some foreign company will copy it and do better job of it. Nobody will want to research after that.