Political battles
The benefit sharing scheme for arogyapacha saw hurdles right from the start. On July 22, 1995, the then chief minister of Kerala, A K Antony, was to sign a memorandum of understanding with Arya Vaidya Pharmacy (AVP), marking the technology transfer from the Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI). It was deferred at the last minute following intervention from the opposition led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPl-M).
The then leader of the opposition V S Achuthanandan argued that the licence fee was too little considering the huge international market potential of the formulation. Calling the agreement a "sell-out", he suggested that the licence fee could have run into crores of rupees.
The Marxist leader made a case for state government-run pharmaceutical companies, such as the Kerala State Drugs and Pharmaceuticals. He contended that the government could have considered transferring the technology to a public sector undertaking outside the state. If none of these was feasible, the government should negotiate with other private drug companies for a bigger share as royalty, argued the leader of the opposition.
P Pushpangadan. director, TBGRI, points out that the licence fee of Rs 10 lakh was adequate as AVP was taking the risk of buying a product untested in the market. It is a promotional drug, he points out, adding that a 2 per cent royalty is an internationally acceptable norm. "One to four per cent royalty is accepted worldwide," he notes.
Pushpangadan cites the example of a regional research laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research which transferred the technology of an Ayurvedic drug in the 1980s for less than Rs 2 lakh.
Later, the Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, sold the technology of a memory drug based on brahmi (Baccopa monnieri for Rs 10 lakh. "It was a one-time transfer, though ours is not a complete transfer," says Pushpangadan. He argues that the seven-year term given to the private firm would help establish the credentials of the drug, and its licence can be sold later for higher profits. "It is the highest licence fee (paid for a drug based on traditional know-how) in India," Pushpangadan declares.
According to norms set by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the scientists who develop a formula are legible for 40 per cent of the licence fee. "But we did not claim anything," notes S Rajasekharan of TBGRI. An initial plan to give the scientists one-fourth of the licensing fee was dropped.
Moreover, once the CPI-M-led coalition came to power, it did not take any initiative. Nor did it try to make the state government's pharmaceutical company come up with an alternate plan of benefit sharing. The state government had a clear choice: either make the public sector capable of commercially utilising such knowledge or the let the private sector do so. Achutanandan's advocacy of favouring state-owned agencies does not hold water. These agencies are not the market leaders, nor did they make an effort to buy tribal medicinal know-how.
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