more-inIndia is rightly acclaimed to be the pharmacy of the world, with its huge private sector capacity for producing branded and unbranded generic drugs. This changed to a product patent regime in 2005, providing sufficient time for growth of the generic drug industry in the private sector. However, this period has also seen the decline and near disappearance of public sector capacity for manufacture of drugs and vaccines. If the domestic private sector drug manufacturers are not ready to apply for CL, for whatever reason, public sector capacity to seek and utilise such licences becomes indispensable. Similarly, drugs for neglected tropical diseases are of little interest to the commercially driven private drug industry.

Source: The Hindu March 13, 2018 18:22 UTC