India’s biggest problem – loss and under-utilization of Intellectual Property Rights: President A P J Abdul Kalam
Sonal Zhaveri, Special Correspondent
November 19, 2004

India is suffering badly from loss and under-utilization of Intellectual Property Rights from Indian Research and Development effort. This is happening in every sector but is most prominent in Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology.

Most of the newly discovered pharmaceutical molecules by the Indian R&D organizations and pharmaceutical industries were sold to multinationals abroad for further development into drugs, adding that the benefit of value addition goes to companies abroad.

On intellectual property rights (IPRs), President Kalam said to make sure that the country does not lose out on any of the IPR issues, it was necessary to properly document research work and to put in claims for patents at the right time.

"It is important for Indian business to capture the IPRs generated in India in order to realise full benefit in the competitive global commerce," he said.

"India missed a great opportunity in partnering the human genome project and had thereby lost the utility of tremendous data," Kalam said inaugurating the Nicholas Piramal Research Centre in Mumbai on Thursday.

Exhorting the Indian biomedical community to take initiative to become a working partner in the proteomics project, he said department of biotechnology in partnership with academia and industry has launched a national programme on proteomics, which should be pursued as a mission mode programme.

"This will lead to our being invited to participate in the global proteomics programme," Kalam said.