The recommendation of Dr Mashelkar panel to encourage incremental innovations by the patent regime assumed great relevance to India and it would go a long way to make drugs available at affordable prices, according to Ranjit Shahani, president of Organization of Pharmaceutical Producers of India.

Reacting to the report, Dilip Shah, secretary general of Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance said, ``As the title suggests, the reference to the Group was on "patent law" but there is hardly any evidence in the report to support its interpretation. Most part of the report is devoted to narrate position of various interest groups, but very little is devoted to providing an insight into what made the Technical Group take the view that to limit patent ability to NCEs is not compatible with the TRIPS agreement.''

Expressing sharp reservation on the recommendations of the panel, public interest group, Centad said, that the report came as per the line of the MNCs argument that patenting of incremental modifications helped Indian companies not the MNCs.

``The biggest beneficiaries of patenting of incremental modifications are multinational pharmaceutical corporations. There is ample evidence to show the patent rights manipulation of MNCs,'' K M Gopakumar of the Centad said.

The IPA functionary said that they engaged the services of Prof. Abbott of Florida State University, who is being consulted by several Governments including India often, to examine the issues referred to the technical expert group. But his views did not get a mention in the report.

The panel has recommended that granting of patents only to new chemical entities in pharmaceutical sector would not be TRIPS complaint, among other suggestions.

``India's socio-economic context, where millions are unable to access the public healthcare system requires that it balanced the right of access to affordable medicines with patent rights. While the introduction of product patents is of great advantage to pharmaceutical companies who hold patents, restricting patent protection to new chemical entities will provide relief to Indian patients who will be able to access affordable pre-1995 drugs produced generically,'' Gopakumar said.