Roche Spearheads Changing Indian Pharma Landscape

Post 2005 the changing landscape of Indian Pharma Market from No Frills Generic Space to Competitive Patent Space is surely not going to be the same golden days for Indian Pharma companies which are often labelled as the Pirates of the Global Pharma Industry. Giving a careful glance over the weekly published Official Gazettes by the Indian Patent Office, the soaring numbers of patent applications filed by and patents granted to global pharma companies has apparently started reflecting that the time has already phased out to learn and question the rules of the game instead it is high time to start playing the game, otherwise it will take no time to be left out in the competitive race or may be wiped out. Fortunately for Indian companies, section 3(d) as amended by the Patents Amendment Act 2005 was formulated and brought into force in 2005 rather in 1995 which left global pharma companies with no option to re-strategize their patent applications filed between 1995 to 2005 in line to section 3(d) requiring additional condition of enhanced efficacy. Even though Indian pharma companies and NGOs has been fighting tooth and nail to oppose a handful of mail-box patent applications for drugs already or recently been introduced in Indian market, but still will not be able to slow down the rising phenomenon of patented drugs in domestic pharma market. Global drug major Roche trigged and spearhead the changing scenario of domestic pharma market by crediting the first product patent for its biotech drug Pegasys for the treatment of hepatitis C followed by some known marketed drug products including its antiviral drug Valganciclovir and revolutionary anticancer drug Tarceva. Pfizer too joined the race by receiving the patent for globally marketed antiretroviral drug Selzentry and oral suspension antipsychotic drug Geodon.

Patentee	Drug Name/Generic name	Patent Number	Application
Roche	Tarceva/Erlonitib Hydrochloride	IN 196 774	537/DEL/1996
Roche	Pegasys/Peginterfero alfa-2a	IN 198 952	1032/MAS/1997
Pfizer	Geodon/Ziprasidon Oral Suspension	IN 201 982	472/MUM/2000
Pfizer	Selzentry/Maraviroc	IN 204 132	885/BOM/1999
Roche	Valcyte/Valganciclovir	IN 207 232	959/MAS/1995