Asserting that India has not taken any arbitrary decision or gone against the law in issuing compulsory licence for the generic production of patented anti-cancer drug Nexavar, Commerce and Industry Minister, Anand Sharma said the U.S. and European companies had done the same on number of occasions.
Mr. Sharma said India had intellectual property in patents regime which was in conformity with all the international protocols. “We are fully compliant when it comes to TRIPS or the WTO agreements. India has never been in violation. I would like to say that compulsory licensing is the outcome of the trade negotiations, when the TRIPS agreement was concluded. It is a flexibility which was initially primarily meant for the developing countries to give compulsory licence to ensure the availability of life-saving drugs at affordable prices,” he added.
“US has done it, other European countries have done it. Some of the developing countries, too, have done it for anti-cancer drugs,” he said.
