India's New "TRIPs-Compliant" Patent Regime: Between Drug Patents and the Right to Health

Thanks to an array of measures post 1970, the Indian domestic pharmaceutical industry flourished in the absence of product patents.' The competitive generic market resulted in production of generic versions of blockbuster drugs at very low prices.2 These generic drugs cost about 5% of the price of similar drugs sold by US and EU pharmaceutical firms.3 Apart from the large domestic consumption, cheap Indian generic drugs have been favored by many millions of AIDS patients across the Third World.4 Generic drugs from India played a key role in lowering the price of antiretroviral treatment by as much as 98%, making it feasible to scale up treatment more rapidly for 3.7 million Africans with AIDS lacking access to treatment. 5