Indian pharmaceutical companies and individuals together could grab just above 15 per cent of the total product patents granted to pharmaceutical inventions and innovations in the past three years from January 1, 2005, ever since the country moved into the product patent regime from process patents.

While the US companies led the list of patents during 2005-07 with as many as 119 out of the total 460 product patents granted in the country, Indian companies and scientists together could secure just 71 patents, indicating the rather poor show of India on pharmaceutical innovations. German companies have won 66 and Switzerland firms got 59 patents, an analysis of the total list of patents showed.

On the Indian side, scientist Sanjeev Khandelwal has the highest number of product patents with 9 while among pharma companies, Dr Reddy's got 6. While big companies like Cipla (4), Torrent Pharma (2), Sun Pharma (3) could make into the list, small and medium scale companies failed to grab any of the gains, exposing another side of Indian innovations in the pharmaceutical sector.

Among the foreign companies, Switzerland-based F Hoffmann La Roche AG led the tally with as many as 28 patents, followed by Novartis with 19. Other major companies like Pfizer, BASF, Sanofi, Merck, Bristol-Mayors Squibb, Eli Lilly and even Japanese Sankyo have many product patents, the list showed.

Sanjeev Khandelwal has patents for innovations in anti-bacterial, analgesic and anti-inflammatory, spasmodic pain and antispasmodic areas. Among the institutions, Madras University and IIT are in the list. Dr Reddy's has won patents for anti-diabetic, anti-cancer and anti-obesity products.

The huge investments required in drug discovery and lack of government support to individuals continued to plague the Indian sector in innovating new tools, methodologies and products while the foreign players continued to dominate the scene, taking big chunks of profits from the markets, according to the observers.