Hospitals & Asylums
Recovery of the Indian Generic Pharmaceutical Export
Industry from the Indian Parliamentary Elections HA-5-9-14
By Anthony J.
Sanders
The Indian general election of May 2014 was the largest, longest,
and the most expensive general election in the history of the country and
indeed the world. According to the Election Commission of India, 814.5 million people
were eligible to vote, with an increase of 100 million voters since the last
general election in 2009, making this the largest-ever election in the world.
Around 23.1 million or 2.7% of the total eligible voters were aged 18–19. Running in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014, this
was the longest election in the country's history. In total there were
1.4 million electronic voting machines in 930,000 voting centers. A total of 8,251 candidates contested for the 543 Lok
Sabha seats. The average election turnout over all nine phases was around
66.38%, the highest ever in the history of Indian general elections. The Indian general election of 2014 was
held to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha, electing members of parliament for all
543 parliamentary constituencies of India. The results were declared on 16 May,
fifteen days before the 15th Lok Sabha completes its constitutional mandate on
31 May 2014. The counting exercise was held at 989 counting centres. The Election Commission of India estimates that the
election cost the exchequer 
3500 crore (US$577 million), excluding the expenses
incurred for security and by the individual political parties. Parties were
expected to spend 30,500 crore (US$5 billion) in the election, according to
the Centre for Media Studies. This was three times the amount spent in the
previous election in 2009, and was then the world's second highest after the
US$7 billion spent on the 2012 US presidential election.
The National
Democratic Alliance, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, won a sweeping victory,
taking 336 seats. The BJP itself won 31.0% of all votes and 282 (51.9%) of all
seats. It is the first time since the 1984 Indian general elections that a
party has won enough seats to govern without the support of other parties. The
United Progressive Alliance, led by the Indian National Congress, won 58 seats,
44 (8.1%) of which were won by the Congress, that won 19.3% of all votes. It
was the Congress party's worst defeat in a general election. BJP and its allies
won the right to form the largest majority government since the 1984 general
election. When it became clear that the BJP would win the election,
Narendra Modi tweeted, "India has won! Bharat ki Vijay. Ache din
ane wale hai (good days are ahead)."
Manmohan Singh tendered his resignation to President Pranab Mukherjee on
17 May. He continued as caretaker Prime Minister, at the request of the
President, until 26 May 2014, when Narendra Modi and his cabinet were sworn to
office.
Since the last
general election in 2009, the anti-corruption movement by Anna Hazare, and
other similar moves by Baba Ramdev and Arvind Kejriwal(founder of Aam Aadmi
Party ), gathered momentum and political interest. Kejriwal went on to form a separate political
party, Aam Aadmi Party in November 2012. The 2012 presidential election,
resulted in Pranab Mukherjee of Indian National Congress becoming the
President. The Telangana movement for a separate Telangana state from Andhra
Pradesh also continued with agitations, including the initial central government
decision to grant statehood and then rescind it after counter-protests. Andhra
politics was further shaken following the death of its chief minister, Y. S. R.
Reddy. His son, Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy, then broke from the INC and founded the
YSR Congress taking several politicians with him. The final session of parliament started on 6
February and ended on 21 February. Amongst the agenda in the final session was
passing the The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2013 in tackling corruption and the
creation of Telangana. On 30 July 2013, the Congress
Working Committee unanimously passed a resolution for the creation of
Telangana. Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) welcomed the decision. YSR Congress
party leader Jaganmohan Reddy however opposed the decision and in agitation
against it, all its MLAs resigned over the issue. The BJP national spokesperson
Prakash Javadekar suggested that the INC's move was under pressure and that BJP
"will watch till Telangana is formed." In February, Chief Minister of
Andhra Pradesh Kiran Kumar Reddy resigned over the proposal to partition the
region. The conflicting views of the political parties thus made the Telangana
issue a crucial one in the elections.
The country's economic indicators were performing well in
advance of the result in expectation of a BJP win, on the perception that Modi
is business-friendly. The benchmark BSE Sensex and CNX Nifty indexes hit record
highs and the Indian rupee strengthened following months of poor performance.
On the result day, as early vote counts gave the BJP a majority lead, the
Sensex reached a record high of 25,375.63 points, ending the day at a new
closing high of 24,121.74. The Nifty reached a record high of 7,563.50, before
ending the day at a new closing high of 7,203. The Indian rupee rose to an
11-month high of 58.62 against the US dollar and closed at 58.79. The price of
onions, a staple in Indian cuisine, faced a dramatic increase. In the lead up
to the election, consumer price inflation increased more than expected while,
paradoxically, industrial production fell by more than expected causing a
dilemma amid slowing growth. The price of salt was also indicative of general
food inflation. The election reportedly boosted the hospitality
sector as, according to ASSOCHAM, tourist arrivals from the countries such as
the US, UK, France, Singapore and the U.A.E. have gone up by 10–15, while the
movement of domestic tourists jumped by 62%.
Generics-discount.com the online exporter of pharmaceutical drugs from a
number of competitive full-service pharmaceutical manufacturing plants
disappeared without a trace at the time of the elections. Drugs were counterfeited in the United States
but they were adulterated, misbranded and switched without informed consent. This loss of access to necessary medicine is
cause for concern to the new draft Statement of the United Nations which calls
for election of a Secretary and ratification of the constitutive document and
international tax proposals. It is hoped
that the United Nations, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in
this case, make reasonable efforts to get the Indian pharmaceutical export
industry back online. We won’t know if
India has elected a democracy or remains in a state of anarchy from the
elections. It seems reasonable to speculate
that there was a large increase in domestic demand for antibiotics, and other
medicines, after the tissue damage of toxic and viral politics became infected
by bacteria and due to the appreciation the purchasing power of the rupee
increased and export earnings decreased.
The Pharmaceutical
industry in India is the world's third-largest in terms of volume.
According to Department of Pharmaceuticals of the Indian Ministry of Chemicals
and Fertilizers, the total turnover of India's pharmaceuticals industry between
2008 and September 2009 was US$21.04 billion. While the domestic market was
worth US$12.26 billion. The industry holds a market share of $14 billion in the
United States. Exports of
pharmaceuticals products from India increased from US$6.23 billion in 2006–07
to US$8.7 billion in 2008–09 a combined annual growth rate of 21.25%. According
to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) in 2010, India joined among the league of top
10 global pharmaceuticals markets in terms of sales by 2020 with value reaching
US$50 billion. In 2002, over 20,000
registered drug manufacturers in India sold $9 billion worth of formulations
and bulk drugs. 85% of these formulations were sold in India while over 60% of
the bulk drugs were exported, mostly to the United States and Russia. Most of
the players in the market are small-to-medium enterprises; 250 of the largest
companies control 70% of the Indian market. Thanks to the 1970 Patent Act,
multinationals represent only 35% of the market, down from 70% thirty years
ago. There are 74 US FDA-approved
manufacturing facilities in India, more than in any other country outside the
U.S, and in 2005, almost 20% of all Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDA) to
the FDA are expected to be filed by Indian companies. As it expands its core business, the industry is being
forced to adapt its business model to recent changes in the operating
environment. The first and most significant change was the 1 January 2005
enactment of an amendment to India’s patent law that reinstated product patents
for the first time since 1972. The legislation took effect on the deadline set
by the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
agreement, which mandated patent protection on both products and processes for
a period of 20 years. Under this new law, India will be forced to recognize not
only new patents but also any patents filed after 1 January 1995. Indian
companies achieved their status in the domestic market by breaking these
product patents, and it is estimated that within the next few years, they will
lose $650 million of the local generics market to patent-holders. In the domestic market, this new patent
legislation has resulted in fairly clear segmentation. The multinationals narrowed
their focus onto high-end patients who make up only 12% of the market, taking
advantage of their newly bestowed patent protection. Meanwhile, Indian firms
have chosen to take their existing product portfolios and target semi-urban and
rural populations.
The urban
flight of pharmacists and disappearance of generics-discount.com is believed to
be the result of a patent protection grab by multinationals pursuant to Indian
patent protection law under the corrupt influence of the refugee perpetuating White
House Intellectual Property (WHIP) Enforcement Coordinator that needs to be
immediately abolished under the Slavery Convention of 1926 and must not
interfere with the recovery of the Indian generic pharmaceutical export
industry. Most of the drugs sold by
Generics-discount.com were patented in the 1960s, more than 50 years ago, not
qualifying for 20 years of patent protection of the WTO. Wherefore, there is no known legal
justification for why generics-discount.com is offline. It is possible that some or most of the drug
manufacturing equipment was patented less than 20 years ago but if they purchased
it, or acquired it using legal methods, the high tech-product belongs to the
firm that owns it, and within the limits of applicable laws, free to produce
standard high quality generic drugs in sealed packages which are sold to
individual humans worldwide. The
presence of counterfeit, nauseatingly adulterated and misbranded Indian drugs
in the United States may be the result of unethically confiscated
pharmaceutical manufacturing machinery from India, which has, so far
unsuccessfully, been targeted for confiscation by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) under 24USC(4)§225h (b-2) should
the Buy American provisions at §225h (b, e, d) procure the drug counterfeiting
equipment. Notwithstanding, the United
States is compelled to pay some sort of compensation for business losses
incurred to the Indian online pharmaceutical exporting industry for the drug
counterfeiting operation in the United States, and to provide incentive to get
the more than $5 billion annual Indian pharmaceutical export market to the
United States back online.
All the information contained in this news report
regarding the Indian Parliamentary elections of 2014 comes from Wikipedia. Further, scientific and legal citation and
analysis of this article may be commissioned without charge by making a written
request to the author at the email address at the top of this article.