Given our strengths with a young demographic, highly educated and innovative work-force, India must do more to protect IPR and encourage innovation. Failing to do so will hamper our growth trajectory as a KITE superpower in the world
The national capital recently played host to the first World Conference on Access to Medical Products and International laws in Trade and Health. The conference, held under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the World Health Organisation, had a wide ranging agenda, looking primarily at means of increasing access to medical products and technology in the context of trade laws, intellectual property and innovation.
The country witnessed extensive debate on the question of access to care, quality and costs. Fortissimo calls for more regulation, and price controls have been met with strident calls on the other side of the aisle on the need to provide a conducive environment for innovation and availability of cutting edge products and decides for rendering clinical care.
Arguably, the debate on efficacy of focusing solely on price controls per se, as a means to increase access, is yet to be adequately settled either way. A competing and more compelling theme that has emerged is the future of innovation, intellectual property and patent protection vis-a-vis medical products and clinical services. Pharmaceutical companies have been rallying for further protections on intellectual property rights (IPR) and patents in India for over a decade and a half.
Primarily, patent protections, patent ‘ever-greening’ (patents in perpetuity) and at the availability of generics for off-patent drugs and molecules have dominated the debate around pharmaceutical products. More recently, the need to make patented and branded generics available at lower costs has become central to the Government’s policy to improve reach. Both debates and policy directives have yet to prove their long-term sustainability in achieving the stated goals of increasing access and measurably lowering costs of care as a whole.
As part of the Government’s desire to improve its standing in the ease of doing business index and increase multi-fold manufacturing and exports from India, hastening patent certification and strengthening the IPR regime has been an area of focus for the commerce Ministry. This welcome move is juxtaposed against the larger vision of making drugs and medicines available at a cheaper cost, sometimes in contravention of established international norms and practices.
Recently, the US Chamber of Commerce and other American entities have increased pressure on the Government to re-look at price controls and lax patent protections as the two countries deepen trade ties and chart a course for the future. Similarly, protracted discussions at the World Trade Organisation and other trade bodies have largely focused on the need to strengthen India’s IPR regime across the board.
While sovereign interests must eclipse any vested pressures, it is in India’s interest to strengthen IPR laws and patent regime. As we chart a course to become a competing super-power in the world, our competition will remain the manufacturing behemoth that is China. India, therefore, needs to chart a new territory for itself like it did in the early 2000’s with the growth of the IT and ITES/off-shoring industry.
Given our strengths with a young demographic, highly educated and innovative work-force and the need to find solutions for India’s myriad problems, knowledge, innovation, technology and enterprise (‘KITE’ as it were) triad needs to be our focus.
Recent studies have pointed out at the preference of the new educated and highly skilled workforce’s desire to make its mark in the start-up world. India, along with Israel, is leading the start-up boom the world over, with our brightest talents brimming with ideas and a strong foundation in science and maths creating innovative products and solutions. These start-ups need a protective guardianship of an enabling IPR and patent regime that can help them protect and monetise their innovations. But if India continues to apply differing standards on IPR to multinational entities, as compared to Indian ones, this nascent KITE triad will fail to fly.
Often the debate around patent protection and costs is confused with monopolies and cartels. By all means, as has been done in the past, adequate laws must be enforced to hinder monopolies across sectors. But this cannot be the starting point for restrictions on patents and innovations that are monetised. Innovation can only be stimulated on the back of a sound financial model and scale. The innovation cycle itself needs investments and a marketable product or service at a price point which should be market determined. India must, therefore, do more to protect IPR and encourage innovation. Failing to do so will only hamper our own growth trajectory as a KITE superpower in the world.
(The writer is general manager, Operation and Public Affairs, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals. He can be reached at dr.karanthakur@gmail.com)
