Word: patent
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...created by Ranbaxy, India's largest drugmaker, was bigger than previously thought. That day, Pfizer's stock dipped 3% as investors grappled with the prospect of this unexpected challenge. Ranbaxy, a vigorous exporter to the U.S., claims that its generic version of Lipitor doesn't infringe on Pfizer's patent and is scheduled to argue its case in a Delaware court late next year. And this wasn't the first jolt that the world's biggest pharmaceutical company has suffered from an Indian rival. Last December, a New Jersey court ruled that another Indian company, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, could...
...India showed two years ago it could take on the giants on their home turf when Dr. Reddy's won the right to hawk generic versions of Eli Lilly's best-selling antidepressant, Prozac. That success opened the floodgates: there are currently at least a dozen patent challenges filed by Indian firms against U.S. drugmakers. In all, Indian companies have received either judicial or administrative clearance to sell 87 generic drugs in the U.S., and 68 more are awaiting approval. "It's a great time for the Indian pharmaceutical industry," exults G.V. Prasad, CEO of Dr. Reddy...
...reason Indian companies are doing so well in America: they have learned to exploit U.S. patent laws that two decades ago were amended to allow for the sale of generic pharmaceutical products. In the mid-1990s, Indian companies searching for overseas revenue streams began pushing into the U.S., where chronically high prices for prescription drugs created a ready market for generics. Dr. Reddy's, for example, now generates one-third of its sales in the U.S. Though domestic sales for Indian drugmakers as a whole are growing at less than 10% a year, their exports soared by 20% last year...
...Even as they succeed overseas, however, trouble is brewing at home. As part of an agreement with the World Trade Organization (WTO), India will apply international patent standards to its domestic pharmaceuticals market in 2005, ending three decades of protectionism and making it easier for multinationals to compete on Indian soil without being relentlessly copied. Currently, India's top 10 pharmaceutical companies spend only 3.3% of their revenues on research into new products?compared with the 10-15% their Western peers spend. Once the new patent laws are enforced, local drugmakers that don't want to be buried by multinationals...
...There are looming problems on the international front too, as Western drugmakers fight back. WTO representatives meeting in Geneva last month hammered out an agreement that allows poor countries, when faced with crises such as AIDS or malaria, to waive international patent laws and buy cheap foreign copies of expensive drugs. Though Indian companies have had a huge impact on the prices of AIDS drugs in Africa (see chart above), they're not actually selling much of their products there because many African nations honor international patent laws. Cipla's Hamied estimates that his company provides drugs to no more...