The Tropical Botanical Garden & Research Institute (TBGRI), the patent holder for Jeevani, is yet to check even its patent status. This is despite the controversy on its name being misused by a US-based company Great Earth Companies Inc. to sell a similar compound 'Jeevani Jolt 1000, as revealed by Pharmabiz, earlier this week.
The drug has only a process patent, filed in 1996. "We have information from some sources that the trademark is being misused in the foreign countries, but has not received any concrete details yet," said Dr.S.Ganeshan, Director, TBGRI. In a telephonic conversation with Pharmabiz, he said details on patents of products including Jeevani is not readily available and the institute is in the process of a patent audit for collecting the same.
Though he refused to respond to the news item, said the issue would be consulted with a patent attorney in Chennai. The institute will go for international patent for all its findings, in future.
Meanwhile, Arya Vaidya Pharmacy (Coimbatore) (AVP), the technology license holder for Jeevani, said the company has discontinued production of Jeevani for sometime following the expiry of the licensing period of seven years, which ended last year. However, AVP had asked TBGRI to extend the licensing period for another one or two years to compensate for the loss of production due to shortage of raw material 'Aarogyapacha' and other unforeseen hiccups during the licensing period. A discussion on the proposal will be held by the second week of the month, informed sources from AVP.
Reacting to the controversy, the sources said AVP does not export Jeevani to overseas markets and has not assigned any company to market the product in US or any other overseas markets on behalf of AVP.