Pharmaceutical Industry And Public Policy In Post Reform India

This book examines the impact of economic reforms in India on the pharmaceutical industry and access to medicines. It traces the changing production and trade pattern of the industry, research and development (R&D) preferences and strategies of Indian pharmaceutical firms, patent system alongside pricing policy measures and their shortcomings. It also analyses the public health financing system in India driven largely by out-of-pocket expenditure — about 60 per cent — and characterised by very high share of medicines in total health expenditure. A masterful insight into a topical area, the work will be indispensable to those working on pharmaceutical industry and public policy. It will be of interest to researchers, scholars, students, and policy-makers of economics, industrial policy, public policy, intellectual property rights and health financing.

This handbook presents a comprehensive study of the post-reform Indian economy, three decades after the economic liberalization started in the early 1990s. It studies the broad range of changes that were introduced in the reforms era, assessing their impact on sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, banking and finance, among others. It also assesses the performance of these sectors amid globalization and the socio-economic shifts in the country. The volume evaluates the contribution of the reforms to social transformation, social inclusion, sustainability and human development, and deliberates on the gains, blind spots and limitations. With contributions from scholars across the country, case studies and comparative analyses that draw on data analysis, econometric evidence and historical sensibility, this is an authoritative volume on the reforms of the 1990s and their impact on the Indian economy and people. Topical and the first of its kind, the book will be a useful resource for scholars and researchers of economics, development studies, political economy, management studies, public policy and political studies.

This book investigates pharmaceutical regulation and the public health issue of fake or illicit medicines in developing countries. The book analyses the evolution of pharmaceutical capitalism, showing how the entanglement of market and health interests has come to shape global regulation. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in India, Kenya, and Europe, it demonstrates how large pharmaceutical companies have used the fight against fake medicines to serve their strategic interests and protect their monopolies, sometimes to the detriment of access to medicines in developing countries. The book investigates how the contemporary dynamics of pharmaceutical power in global markets have gone on to shape societies locally, resulting in more security-oriented policies. These processes highlight the key consequences of contemporary "logistical regimes" for access to health. Providing important insights on how the flows of commodities, persons, and knowledge shape contemporary access to medicines in the developing countries, this book will be of considerable interest to policy makers and regulators, and to scholars and students across sociology, science and technology studies, global health, and development studies.

The book explores the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on nations across the globe since early 2020. It hosts a variety of perspectives within economic, social and development research studies, providing contemporary and proper information. The book also presents policy prescriptions for developing economies, critiques the system of disease surveillance and waste management, and defines a vision for India's development. It also mirrors issues related to digitisation, marginalisation, government regulations and health systems and provides original ideas for innovative methodologies suitable for higher education. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)

This study analyzes the impact of the revision of the Indian Patent Act (2005) on the Indian pharmaceutical industry, which has been achieving healthy growth over the past 30 to 40 years or more. As of 2005, the Indian pharmaceutical industry was ranked as No. 4 in the world in terms of volume and 15th in terms of value. WTO/TRIPS required India to revise its patent law, however, and to introduce product patents in the pharmaceutical field. Many not only in India but also in the world had argued that the local pharmaceutical industry could deteriorate once a strong patent law (such as a product patent) was introduced. However, the Indian pharmaceutical industry has continued to develop rapidly even after the revision of the patent law in 2005. This present study started with efforts to work out the reason the Indian pharmaceutical industry successfully expanded even after the introduction of product patents. The study found that a unique article (the so-called '3-d‘) inserted in the Patent Act 2005 might have played a role in diminishing or preventing a negative impact from the introduction of a strong patent system, such as a product patents. The study also considers that a change of the business model adopted by the Indian pharmaceutical industry might have contributed to diminishing the effect of the negative impact from the introduction of a strong patent law. This study also covers recent developments in India regarding intellectual property rights and the pharmaceutical industry. One is India’s very first compulsory license granted to an Indian pharmaceutical company, Natco, against the large German pharmaceutical firm Bayer; and the second is the Supreme Court decision on Novartis’ Gleevec. The study analyzes the fundamental problems that caused these two events: access to medicine and gaps in the concept of intellectual property in the pharmaceutical industry. As possible solutions to these fundamental issues, this book explores the ideas of voluntary licensing and tiered pricing.

This book presents an extensive study on the effectiveness of recent regulations on pharmaceutical prices in India, exploring the weaknesses in the design and implementation of pharmaceutical price controls and investigating what can be done to fix the broken system. In addition, it examines the extent to which essential medicines are actually made affordable by price controls. The book argues that companies make the pharmaceutical price control regime largely ineffective by coordinating to increase pre-regulation prices; by diversifying horizontally away from the regulated markets and increasing prices in the unregulated markets; by manipulating trade margins; and by refusing to comply with the regulation because the penalties remains negligible. The book draws on extensive empirical research involving India’s 2013 Drug Price Control Order and widely-used medicines such as paracetamol and metformin to illustrate how firms have weakened regulation. It argues that the regulatory regime can be strengthened by using systematic analysis of product- and region-level data in the Indian pharmaceutical industry, and by screening for the strategies that firms currently employ to circumvent regulation. In closing, it discusses recent efforts to strengthen the implementation of price controls in India and expanding the scope of price controls to medical devices.

It uses multi-level analytical approach to provide insights on two industries that coped with WTO initiated global institutional change.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of universal health coverage in India. It starts by setting the historical context and politics of the debates around universal health coverage (UHC) in India and proceeds to analyze the present crisis of public health in the country. The book examines the present policies on the pharmaceutical industry, missing links in universalizing health, and the importance of social determinants of health. It is divided into five sections, and some of the topics covered include the difference between comprehensive primary health care and universal health care, public health and medical care, health service, and health system. The chapters are contributed by scholars and practitioners based on historical, interdisciplinary, empirical, and policy research. The book is insightful to academics, public health administrators, policymakers, practitioners, and students interested in health care and organization, looking to transform theory into policy and practice.