Does India's Pharma need more regulation?

As India's pharmaceutical industry grows internationally and at home, it is coming under domestic scrutiny with respect to drug prices and patents, and a debate has been initiated by the Business Standard newspaper asking: Does the pharma sector need more regulation?

In India, access to affordable medicines has long been dependent on government regulation of the patent system and pricing of essential drugs in the domestic market. This has made the country self-reliant in the manufacture of products, and not only benefited Indian patients but also increased access to essential medicines for patients in developing countries. In the last decade, however, India has been slowly changing its policy of government regulation of the pharmaceutical sector. While measures to control the prices of drugs have decreased drastically in the last decade, a product patent regime that establishes a market monopoly to sell a patented drug was implemented in 2005, notes the Business Standard.