A green company in a grey market
There was a time when Payinthulasi, a 40-year old herb gatherer of village Utchananthal in Virudunagar district of Tamil Nadu, had to trudge to …
Will the boom last?
Fifteen years after it rose and went limp, the biotech sector, globally, as well as in India has seen a bull run of sorts. In January this year, …
TRIPPED
On December 26, 2004, the Union government of India issued the Patents (Amendments) Ordinance, which will change the way the country does …
`Many doctors are simply businessmen'
Samiran Nundy, chairperson of the department of surgical gastroenterology and organ transplantation at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and editor-in-chief …
The inside story
Bad health is good business. The pharmaceutical industry knows that. But now bad health is turning out to be good business for the food industry …
Manipulating Research
Private funding has given a new meaning to scientific research today. With rising corporate research budgets, academic institutions are leaning …
Non-profit diseases
There is a logic to the idea of neglected diseases. Historically the diseases poor people get--largely in the poorer parts of the world--haven't …
Troubled Beautiful Minds
They are there—each residential area has its mentally disturbed people; each family has anecdotes of crazy relatives. Nobody wants to …
A treaty too many
India is learning that there is a heavy price to be paid for the large number of bilateral investment treaties, or BITs, it has signed in the …
Illicit drug markets expanding, compounding global crises: UN
Drug users’ estimate at record high; Trafficking networks challenging health services, law enforcement responses
Share-ware
A usual story: a transnational company develops a profitable product based on the resources and knoledge preserved by an indigenous community …
A healthy turn
Ubiquitous web crawler Google will no longer flash ads of unlicensed pharmacies, which have used the Internet to sell millions of doses of …
Dhaka to give drug policy a free-market dose
Under pressure from transnationals, the Bangladesh government is likely to ease restrictions on producing and importing medicines.
GATTing drugs, not getting them
The latest durg price control order will boost the MNCs and deprive the common consumer by damaging the small scale sector
Success is a mindgame
A memory drug developed by Indian scientists could hold the key to a ultimillion dollar global market
What a mess
Should the people of South Africa be denied medicines because they are too poor to pay for them?
AI throws patent system into turmoil — especially in drug discovery
Artificial intelligence is overturning the conventional idea of intellectual property rights
MNCs allergic to Third World ills
THE WORLD'S PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES: AN INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIES: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON INNOVATION, COMPETITION AND POLICY Robert …
Fighting to break free
THE POLITICS OF ESSENTIAL DRUGS·Zaffrulla Chowdhury· Vistaar Publications, New Delhi · Price Rs 195
Taking a short cut
A new method of drug development which expedites the lengthy process of scanning thousands of possible combinations, could lower drug prices …
Encouraging orphan drugs in India
India needs to formulate an atrractive law to spur development of drugs for rare diseases
Tropical pill
Medicines are for the rich, not for fighting tropical diseases afflicting millions in developing nations. Pharmaceutical companies seem to have …
For children's sake
Public pressure forces US agency to reconsider proposed move to suspend paediatric drug testing rule
Price of patents
Experts believe that the Patents (Amendment) Bill 1999, which was passed recently by the Indian Parliament may give rise to an escalation of …
During 2015-16 Nepal blockade, medicine export from India fell drastically: study
The Himalayan nation paid US$ 22.3 million more to procure medicines during the blockade