The Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (IDMA) has sought the intervention of the law makers in the country to save the Indian generic drug industry from internal as well as external forces that are hell bent to victimize the Indian generic drug industry which has been recognized as the source of quality affordable drugs worldwide.
In a memorandum sent to all the Members of Parliament (MPs), IDMA president NR Munjal said that the Rs 90,000 crore Indian pharmaceutical industry with exports of Rs 45,000 crore is currently facing serious crisis. If immediate corrective measures and required support from the Government is not forthcoming the growth rate of the industry will be very severely affected thereby depriving the poor and needy patients of quality affordable medicines.
Urging the law makers to intervene in the matter, Munjal said that the industry is being victimized by many quarters internally and externally. Internationally, there are numerous attempts by vested interests to malign and kill the Indian generic drugs industry. The global MNCs, in order to protect their patent and commercial interests, find out devious ways to block, malign and wipe out India's generic drug industry. Such unscrupulous attempts are maligning and damaging the goodwill and status of the Indian pharma industry globally.
Munjal regretted that a very disturbing trend had emerged last year when export consignments of Indian generic medicines in transit to Latin American countries were confiscated at EU ports. It was clearly a case of imposing TRIPS Plus provisions on affordable generic drugs from India. The products had no Patent or Trade Mark problem either in India (origin country) or the destination country. But, according to allegations, there was a suspicion that the product infringed an IPR according to the Dutch law and, therefore, the Dutch customs authorities confiscated it. This action, however, is against the WTO rules.
Another major move has been to pressurize African countries such as Kenya who were dependant on India's quality affordable generics, to enact vague and strange laws under economic and political threat. These laws being enacted stipulate that any generic product (including drug) will be treated as 'counterfeit' if a patent on that product exists even in any one country anywhere in the world.
This will deny the poor patients, who are surviving on affordable medicines from India, access to these medicines. This issue is of life-and-death importance in Kenya and much of the rest of Africa, where HIV/AIDS patients can usually only afford generic drugs such as from India, which are up to 90 per cent cheaper than their 'Branded' counterparts. The international donors who fund some drug distribution, including the US PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, rely mostly on generic manufacturers from India, Munjal said.