Business Standard today carries this slightly unclear piece about a new Bangladeshi law that will increase “chances of technical partnerships in Bangladesh”. Apparently, Bangladesh has “changed its patent law in an attempt to become a hub for manufacturing cheap copies of patent-protected medicines. ” However, another statement in the same article casts some shadow on this assertion:
Nazmul Ahsan, general secretary, Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industry (BAPI):
“Our government is actively considering various provisions to incorporate the flexibilities of TRIPS (trade-related intellectual property rights) within the patent law. It will be in the form of annexes that make production of medicines having patent protection elsewhere legally possible. We will be able to supply it to other developing nations also,” he said.
The article contains the usual info about the TRIPs, parallel imports and developing countries as well as some useful info on how the Indian pharmaceutical industry operates:
India, under its new patent regime, cannot supply raw materials or bulk drugs of patented medicines. However, it can supply intermediates (which are one step down in the manufacturing cycle of bulk drugs) anywhere in the world.
If Indian companies can strengthen the technological capabilities of their Bangladesh partners, these intermediates can be further developed into bulk drugs and finished medicines in that country. While these medicines have an assured market in all poor countries, they can also reach nations like India on the basis of compulsory licences.
“Indian bulk drug companies are going to fetch good business as penultimate raw material suppliers to bulk drug firms in Bangladesh. It will be definitely attractive for all new products that cannot be made in India,” he said.
So.. we can’t directly infringe patents and manufacture drugs. So we will manufacture them cheaply till their last step. Export them over the border to Bangladesh where they are assembled. Then use compulsory licensing to re-import drugs back to India. A pirate alliance like no other! Everyone’s happy.
Bangladesh shouldn’t be happy with this arrangement. A couple of months ago, Padma Gehl-Sampath made a presentation at the Alternative Law Forum on the technical capacity of the Bangladesh pharmaceutical industry. According to her, although the industry has a fairly robust manufacturing base, it has a very thin research base due to inadequate investment in pharmaceutical education. So Bangladesh imports machinery to manufacture drugs, but does not itself possess enough skilled manpower to reverse engineer drugs. India’s pharmaceutical industry ‘miracle’ since the 70s has owed itself to the fact that we had a largish base of skilled pharmacologists who could re-engineer very quickly.
So, short term, as an Indian, this makes me very proud. Long term, I’d like to see more pirate drug producing nations.
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