The effort of multinational companies to price their products out of reach of the consumer is partly responsible for increasing incidence of drugs patent infringement in Third World countries such as India and China informed Vijay K Kuchroo, Assistant Professor of Immunology, Harvard Medical School and consultant to some leading US based pharmaceutical companies.

Currently in India in his role as the course director for the week long Winter School in Immunology, organized by the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) and co-sponsored by the Cancer Research Institute, New York, and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, New York, Dr Kuchroo maintained that the increasing infringement would stop once the drug companies in the US and Europe would start selling their drugs to the Third World at affordable prices.

"They should be aware of the needs in the developing countries. Once they are aware, I am sure these companies would be willing to price their products at the affordable level thereby reducing the incidence of drug patent infringements," Dr.Kuchroo maintained.

He further said that the dual pricing system, where the same drug sells for different prices in the rich and the poor countries, could work but this could become more viable if the prices of the drugs is subsidized not by the respective governments but by the pharmaceutical companies themselves.

Speaking to Pharmabiz.com, he maintained that the government has a vital role to play by suggesting ideas and initiating moves to change the system. The government should lead from the front and tell people of the dire need to protect our knowledge and set up the required mechanism.

He further added that the government needs to evolve mechanism for propogating awareness about intellectual property rights (IPR) and patent protection. The need of the hour is to have proper people trained in the above and have more of patent lawyers.

Speaking on the need to promote domestic companies he maintained that it is ironical that though this country has had the finest technical manpower Indian scientists shun idea about promoting their own companies and instead are content working for others. Part of the problem is due to the existing environment in the country, which does not credit a person who finds something new.

The government should go about changing the environment, which will promote setting up new companies. In the US, the government provides seed money to the drug companies. The first tranche is $5000 and the second is around $3 million. The seed money from the government pre-supposes the role of the VCs, something of this sort should happen in India too.

Detailing about his company, Point Therapeutics' plans, he said that the company has designed new small molecules that can modulate the immune system. These small molecules actually make the drugs and some are undergoing tests. The Phase I safety trial and the Phase II trial are complete. The Phase III trial will help them to get the US FDA approval.