A BILL before the Indian parliament is threatening the supply of cheap drugs to the world’s poorest countries, prompting protests in Nairobi and other African cities.
As it stands, Indian law does not recognise patents on drugs – only on the processes used to make them. The country leads the world in making cheap generic drugs. Local companies helped slash the price of HIV treatment forty-fold and today supply half the 700,000 people in developing countries who take the anti-HIV drugs, according to medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières.
As a member of the World Trade Organization, India has…
