Pharmaceuticals

THE Indian government has prepared a draft of the amended Patents Act, designed to comply with the obligations under the WTO agreement. The draft is going through a process of consultations, and is likely to … Read moreUS Drug MNCs Bare Their Fangs

THE United States government and the US pharmaceutical industry are fighting hard to prevent the compulsory licensing of essential drugs, particularly AIDS drugs, in developing countries. Already pressure has been brought to bear on the … Read morePharmaceutical Industry Profits of US Cos. vs. Millions of Lives

As Bush descends on the country, a number of events are planned to synchronise with his visit and mark its success. One amongst the many has a vital bearing on more than 60% of Indian … Read moreIndo-US Agriculture Initiative: Handing Indian Agriculture To Monsantos

IT has been argued that if cereals – rice, wheat, corn, maize, etc — had not been cultivated by man, human civilisation may not have existed in the form we know today. Settled agriculture was … Read moreMAPPING OF THE RICE GENOME: Triumph Of Public Funded Research

RESEARCH on stem cells has been in the news in recent times for very contradictory reasons. On the one hand, it raises visions of a constant supply of living material that can repair and replace … Read moreStem Cell Research: Promises and Concerns

RECENTLY the leading Indian pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy and the leading global pharmaceutical major, Glaxo Smithe Kline announced that they had come to a collaborative agreement on pharmaceutical R&D. This agreement is being hailed in industry … Read moreSelling Out To MNCs: R&D Deal Between Glaxo And Ranbaxy

THE battle on Patent rights is now poised to spill out of laboratories dealing with chemical substances to human bodies. Biotech companies are involved in a furious scramble to patent every bit of the human … Read morePatenting Our Genes