A protest in Delhi against patent laws. (File picture)

New Delhi, Feb. 22: A team of scientists, patent experts and senior Left leaders today said the Mashelkar Committee set up by the government to examine India’s patent law has lost its credibility and should be scrapped.

The demand follows allegations that the report finalised by the committee in December 2006 is biased in favour of multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Lawyers and health activists have also revealed that sections of the Mashelkar Committee report had been lifted verbatim from an earlier paper by a patent law expert in the US, commissioned through drug company funds.

In its report, the committee had said that restricting patents only to new chemical entities, or molecules, would be a violation of an international trade pact that India has signed. This would imply that India should allow patents on even incremental technical inventions involving drugs, provided they satisfy the conditions of novelty, non-obviousness and utility.

Health activists have said such a move would allow pharmaceutical companies to get patents on frivolous inventions that involve minor tinkering with molecules and lead to an increase in drug prices over time.

An offer by Raghunath Mashelkar, former director-general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), to rewrite the report today evoked sharp criticism.

“This is a national shame. The expert committee should be scrapped,” CPM leader Nilotpal Basu said today.

Senior CPI functionary D. Raja said the committee has “sullied our image” and its report “serves the interests of multinational companies”. The Left leaders also indicated that their parties would take this issue up in Parliament, which opens tomorrow.

Patent experts maintain recommendations provided in the Doha Declaration on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights allow nations to introduce safeguards in patent laws to ensure access to medicines.

The Indian Parliament amended the patent law in 2005, and introduced clauses that prevent drug companies from getting patents on incremental — very small — technical changes to existing drug molecules. Health activists are worried the conclusions of the committee may lead to a situation where patents will be granted even to incremental inventions.

“The credibility of the Mashelkar Committee is in question,” said B.K. Keala, an expert with the National Working Group on Patents. “The government should set up a new committee or a joint parliamentary committee.”

Mashelkar told The Telegraph the mandate of his committee was not to examine the implications of the law on public health, but merely to determine whether granting patents only to new chemical entities would be a violation of intellectual property rights.

“Our mandate was to simply arrive at a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ and the answer we’ve given is ‘no’,” Mashelkar said. “But it’s up to India to set standards for novelty and innovativeness.”

Opposition to the committee’s report is brewing even within the CSIR. “It’s a scandal. The committee is promoting the interests of multinational drug companies as national interests,” said Dinesh Abrol, a member of the CSIR scientific workers’ association.