Washington: The U.S. pharma industry has expressed concern over deteriorating intellectual property environment in India, alleging that patent rights in the country are unreasonably denied.
"PhRMA remains concerned about the deteriorating intellectual property environment in India," Mark Grayson, PhRMA spokesman told.
The remarks by PhRMA or Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, representing America's leading biopharmaceutical researchers and biotechnology companies, comes days after the India's Ambassador to the U.S., Nirupama Rao, wrote to U.S. lawmakers and a Congressional committee held a hearing on the issue.
"We have shared our views about the importance of promoting a policy environment that supports continued research and development of new medicines with Ambassador Rao and other members of the Indian Government," Grayson said.
In a letter to U.S. lawmakers last month, Rao had defended India's IP policy arguing that India has a well-settled, stable and robust intellectual property regime.
"The three main pillars of this regime are comprehensive laws, detailed rules to back them up, and strong enforcement mechanisms, including for dispute resolution," she had said.
Rao had said of all patents granted for pharmaceutical inventions between 2005 and 2011, more than 85 percent were owned by foreign companies in India, with U.S. holding 20-30 percent share of the patents.
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