India ready to defend its IPR norms at WTO: Sharma

Rejecting US allegations related to intellectual property rights (IPR), India today voiced its readiness to discuss the matter at WTO as it had not breached any international agreement.

Commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma said if the US wanted a discussion in WTO, India was ready for it as it was not in breach of any agreement, the report added.

Sharma's reply came to a question over the US charges that India's IPR norms discriminated against US companies, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector.

Sharma said it there was any specific issue, the US must inform the government, adding that he had told US FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg that Indian authorities needed to be kept in the loop in case they had any issues.

Hamburg who was in India last month had met Sharma.

The US, which is among the largest importers of Indian generic medicines, had recently banned import of drugs from Sun Pharma's Karkhadi facility in Gujarat for violation of manufacturing norms.

Further, the US had also raised concerns over a compulsory license (CL) issued by India to Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma for the manufacture and sale of cancer-treatment drug Nexavar (See: Bayer appeals against grant of 'Nexavar' licence to Natco). http://www.domain-b.com/companies/companies_b/Bayer/20120507_nexavar.html

Indian authorities had expressed concern over the USFDA's audit inspections of Indian pharmaceutical companies as also the disproportionate penalties imposed in certain instances.

A series of actions by the USFDA aimed to restrict shipments by Indian pharmaceutical firms, to the US, their largest export market.

Anand Sharma yesterday came out strongly to defend India's track record on intellectual property rights and said that India was ready to take on the US at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the issue.

Meanwhile, an Indian committee was reviewing up to a dozen patented drugs to check if the so called compulsory licences, which effectively broke exclusivity rights, could be issued for some of them.

A series of recent decisions on patented drugs in India, as part of New Delhi's push to increase access to lifesaving treatments, coupled with India's Nexavar action was at the centre of trade friction between India and the US.

Meanwhile, India remains concerned over the manner in which the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) was carrying out audit inspections of Indian pharmaceutical companies and in certain cases announcing major penalties without even waiting for clarification from these firms to come through.