[ta43434]

That defeats the purpose of patents for drugs.

It's convenient for drugs that have already been discovered and validated, but the difficult part of making a drug is not the chemical process to produce it, but knowing which chemical to produce in the first place. Knowing where to tap with the hammer, if you will.

If you want there to be no patents for drugs, that's an argument to make, but this type of "patent" is just a fig leaf for not having patents at all.

[slaxman]

While that is one way of looking at it. It also encourages other companies to put in effort in finding different processes to produce the product. Whether the amount of effort involved is substantial or not is a different matter, but the end result is that drugs are very cheap in India (as it should be). Companies try to make money at scale and not by squeezing their customers dry.

My dentist recently told me about 2 drugs which are essentially the same. The drug made by the foreign company costs Rs. 200 (approx $4). On the other hand the India generic version costs Rs. 30 (approx 50cents).

[aaronem]

> My dentist recently told me about 2 drugs which are essentially the same. The drug made by the foreign company costs Rs. 200 (approx $4). On the other hand the India generic version costs Rs. 30 (approx 50cents).

Well, sure. All the hard work's already done for the company making the generic version; even complex syntheses are trivial by comparison with the staggering amount of effort required to find and validate an effective new drug.