Delivered Extempore

VADODARA, APRIL 17, 1993

Shri Dilip Sanghvi, Shri Santilal Sanghvi, Hon'ble Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Gujarat, Shri Soneri, Hon'ble Minister of State Dr.  Goel, Prof.  M.G.K.  Menon, Dr.  Pushpa Bhargava, Dr.  Dasgupta, distinguished scientists, ladies and gentlemen,
 
This is a very happy and confidence-inspiring occasion for me to see this very large, impressive audience at the inauguration of a scientific medical enterprise, which is in my view a very important event.  I believe that this is evidence of the enlightened public support that the science and technology and health programmes is receiving in the State of Gujarat.  I believe that without the development of science and technology, nothing much can be achieved in the way of economic development in our country or in any country in the world in modern times.
 
The difference between the developing countries and the developed countries is actually lies in the state of advance in the two groups of countries.  The difference between the newly industrialised countries like Korea, Taiwan and other countries which have made progress and the other developing countries is also that of the state of advance and the application of science and technology to industry and agriculture.  Therefore, for us in India to start an enterprise like SPARK is of vital significance.  It is only by relying upon the additional output, the additional efficiency and the additional quality that science and technology can bring to economic products, that we can effectively compete in the world and be an equal member of a new globalised economy.  That is why I said this inauguration and this immense audience inspires the confidence in me about the future of our country.
 
In scientific technological development, one aspect of primary importance is investment in research and development.  As we know, we started our scientific technological programmes almost immediately after our independence because we were fortunate to have had as our first Prime Minister one who believed in the need and necessity of science for economic and social development.  But unfortunately it is difficult for us to put in sufficient investment, particularly into R & D.  It is precisely this that Sun Pharma is doing today.  Whatever research and development effort and investment which went into science and technology was limited to the Government sector.  The chain of great laboratories, the CSIR laboratories that we built up was the biggest adventure in the development of research and development in our country.  But today we moving into a new era when a new partnership is taking place between government scientific institutions, between universities and private industry.  This is another matter of great significance with regard to Sun Pharma.  An enterprising family has come forward to establish this Sun Pharma advanced research centre in the private sector.  In that they have cooperated with our CSIR laboratories.  The presence of Prof.  M.G.K.  Menon here and that of Dr.  Pushpa Bhargava is eloquent evidence of this.
 
Prof.  M.G.K.  Menon, as you know, has been initiator of some of the basic scientific technological policies that this country had followed.  He had also the opportunity of overseeing the implementation of these polices in a wide spectrum in our country.  Dr.  Bhargava is one of the great scientists who built a wonderful institution in Hyderabad.  I had the opportunity of seeing that when the then Prime Minister, Shri Rajiv Gandhi opened the new building of CCFP.  It is a splendid palace of scientific research and development.
 
I am glad to see that these concepts are being implemented in Sun Pharma.  Some of us who went around the this research centre and this pharmaceutical manufacturing centre have been astonished by the up-to-date equipments that is here and the high level scientific technological personnel working there, and of the meticulous care being taken for health and environmental protection.  There is great concentration on the quality of the product in this centre.  One of the reasons as you know why some of our products medical, as well as other products, cannot be exported to the developed countries is because of their complaint that our standards and level of purity of products are not high enough.  I read the other about the refutation of this argument in regard to one product.  I was told that the medical product called Ibuprofen, we wanted to export it to Germany and the German buyers questioned the quality and purity of this product.  As it happened Ibuprofen was analysed and assessed earlier in a major laboratory in the United States.  Its degree of purity was assessed at 99.8% and the same German products was 99.4% in standard of purity.  This surprised the German buyers.  Therefore, we can, if we wish to make the most sophisticated medical preparations on highest standards of quality and purity, and this is being demonstrated at Sun Pharma.
 
We are today facing what I should call probably a major problem in regard to the patent issue and the Dunkel Proposals would have us adopt completely product patenting in many of the medicines that we make.  I know that basically we go along with Dunkel because we want a world of free trade as much as possible.  We want trade to expand globally.  We also want a global market for our products.  But it is important to have certain safegaurds incorporated for the future of our own industries, and our own agriculture. The pharmaceutical industry is one of most important in regard to this.  I am sure you are aware of the fact that until very recently almost all the developed countries have believed fanatically in process patenting.  If you read some of the verdicts of British and United States courts of law, you will surprised by the vehement arguments they use for maintaining process patenting in regard to their pharmaceutical products until very recently.  Even now, I think, only Italy has abandoned it only very very recently.  Spain is going to give it up only this year or next year.  Japan abondoned it very recently.  In fact all the developed countries of the world have come up to this stage through process patenting. 

I think, it would be unfair if a developing country like India is denied the opportunities of getting advantage out of process patenting which all the developed countries got to the fullest extent until the other day.  There are many issues involved in it.  I do not want to go into it.  But what we want specifically is more time to make the transition from process patenting, process manufacture to product manufacture.  It requires more time, not only because we do not have enough scientific talent for making products, but because we do not have sufficient resources to invest in such an expensive enterprise.  I do not want to go more into this controversy about the patenting system but basically what we want is more time.  We also do not want the patent system to be interpreted as freedom to export to India and not to manufacture in India products under patent.  We would like under patent system products to be manufactured here so that eventually we will understand the full technology and in the interim our country will get the benefit of employing our own people in this industry.  It is a matter of very great significance for our industrial and economic development.  Our Government is arguing with these things to get some modifications on some of the Dunkel proposals of vital importance to our economy.  When I see a modern institution like this, so impressive, which can compare, I have been Bell laboratories in the United States, I think going through it your atmosphere of health and environmental protection and the care with which you have maintained this institution, and the high calibre of the people who are working here, are I think, higher than in many laboratories in other even advanced countries.
 
What I would like to see is that this kind of research facility is extended.  Prof.  M.G.K.  Menon referred to that problem.  We need many institutions like this in the private sector in India.  This is a challenge to the private sector because we are liberalising our economy.  We are giving full freedom to market competition and the private sector is going to occupy the major portion of our activity.  If that is so, if the private sector does not take up the challenge of R & D how can Government do that when Government is handing over more power, more initiative and more autonomy to the private sector.  That is why I said this is a new challenge to the private sector.  I want to congratulate Sun Pharma for taking up this challenge.
 
When I mentioned about other laboratories coming up like this, I have in mind not only research centres related to allopathy system of medicines. We have system called Ayurveda and other indigenous systems tried over centuries and which have been found to be efficacious.  I think it is obligatory on our part to have advanced research centres for exploring the innumerable hypothesies and the wealth of imperical experience that is available in Ayurveda, Unani and other systems.  So that we could develop some of the products of Ayurveda and Unani in a modern way.  We can standardise them.  We can manufacture them on a bigger scale and we can also bring down the cost of things.  The cost of medicine is of vital significance for a poor country of over 850 million people like that of India.  I remembered that two months ago I went to Paris.  I wanted to use an eye drop, which is a Homeopathic eye drop called Cineraria Eye Drops.  The price of it within two years went up in India from eighteen rupees to sixty rupees.  I thought this is enormous price increase. 

This was manufactured in France and we were replicating it here.  So I thought I will buy it from France.  I got it in Paris.  Instead of sixty rupees it cost me four hundred and fifty rupees.  I am just telling you a small personal experience which is indicative of the cost that we will have to suffer, if we are to import the same medicine that have to manufacture here and which is manufactured in the developed countries of the world.  Do we want to subject our people to this kind of prohibitive cost for safeguarding their health?  That is one of the most important reasons that we have to have safeguards built into the patent and other proposals in the Dunkel system.  I am sure that if a combination of indigenous as well as modern scientists could get together and do research into our Ayurvedic preparations, we might well come up with some very important inventions of our own for fighting new and old diseases of mankind.
 
May I take this occasion once again to congratulate Sun Pharma for the great initiative they have taken and the model they have set up for the application of science and technology for the making of medicines, for fighting for the health of our people and for making contributations which are original, modern and uptodate.  Thank you very much.