TIMES NEWS NETWORK

US misuses compulsory licences: Sikka

Issues pertaining to trade related intellectual property rights and the pharmaceutical sector continue to hang fire even as a medical emergency surfaces over a new pneumonia strain. Umesh Anand spoke to Harinder Sikka, senior president of Nicholas Piramal, who recently returned from an important interaction at Stanford, on issues that have ranged the US against much of the world.

Business, Standard

Intelligent Information

The US is facing growing isolation at the WTO after it blocked Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in December last year.

While the Financial Times editorial on January 3rd blamed it on the powerful US pharmaceutical lobby and terms its reasons as widely exaggerated, it also singles out India and Brazil for willfully stoking fears that diseases such as obesity and asthma may be taken under the purview of compulsory licensing.

The argument, it appears, primarily attempts to bail out the US government that has come under severe criticism from all quarters, including the European Commission.

The Economic Times 

Human rights vs animal rights 

 H SIKKA

Sr. President (Corp)

Nicholas Piramal

Animals play a vital role in drug discovery

MIGHT is right, not only in jungles and Bihar but also with a handful of NGOs who, under the umbrella of the committee constituted for the purpose of Control & Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA), have rated animals much higher than the humans, severely affecting new drug discovery in India in the process. In the name of protecting animals, these NGOs have in fact succeeded in causing extreme levels of frustration and harm to the scientific community.

A patent problem called anthrax

HARINDER SIKKA

 THE Canadian governments decision to manufacture the generic version of the antibiotic drug, Ciprofloxacin, has expectedly met with no voice of dissent from the patent holding MNC. Even the US government is understood to be considering inviting pharma companies from the third world in order to ensure availability of stocks of Cipro, for the simple reason that it accords the highest priority to the safety of its people and therefore deems it fit to overlook patent regulations.