The legal brawl between the Government of India and the pharma major Novartis AG is turning into a global concern. It is just not the issue of access to the low- cost AIDS drug but the entire range of essential medicines. Indian companies are major suppliers of low-priced drugs to international aid agencies like UNICEF.

The Novartis application was rejected under the Section 3(d) of the Indian Patent Law, which does not recognize the attempts of the firms to present "old wine in a new bottle" through slight improvement in the form of structure.

N H Israni of the Indian Drugs Manufacturing Association said that any precedent to allow patents to minor improvements will undermine India's capability to produce low cost generic versions of these drugs.
Source: Business Standard, Thursday, February 01, 2007