An Analysis on Pharmaceutical Patent Applications and Grants in India: Mega-pharma shifts its strategies toward India

The Indian pharmaceutical industry ranks third globally in terms of volume. Due to the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which entered into force in 1995, India revised its patent law in 2005 and reintroduced product patents. Mega-pharma companies that had left India in the 1970s re-entered India between the late 1990s and early 2000s and started engaging in R&D activities and submitting patent applications to the Indian Patent Office. Due to these activities, the number of patent applications in India shot up in the mid-2000s; however the number has been dropping since then. This study analyzed the transition of mega-pharma companies business strategies toward India by using both the Indian Patent Office's database and Clarivate's Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI).