On the changing strategies of Indian generics.

An oped on Thailand and TRIPS.

And Novartis in Thailand.

And the USTR report on Thailand.

And more on Abbott in Thailand.

And books in Indonesia... proposals for cheap copies to cut into those exorbitant authorship profits.

Andrew Farlow's report on the Medical Research and Development Treaty:

The MRDT, if ratified, would face all kinds of implementation challenges, few of which have been addressed by its proponents. In particular, the efficiency of the MRDT relies heavily on a credit trading mechanism, with credits earned from spending on a wide variety of types of R&D. The thinking is borrowed from the literature on carbon dioxide emissions trading, but the MRDT ignores all the differences between R&D and CO2 emissions, and all of the problems experienced by Kyoto.

Neither is it clear how the MRDT would assign true value for medical inventions, or how self-interested gaming and free riding could be avoided. It is not clear how the level of a country's spending obligations would be set and evaluated, making it extremely difficult to police and enforce the MRDT.

These, and other shortcomings identified in this paper, mean that the MRDT could have the opposite effect to that intended resulting in more risk, less efficiency and less innovation. Worse, the complexity of the MRDT is likely to divert resources and attention from more simple solutions that actually stand a chance of improving the health of the poor immediately, instead of at an unspecified time in the far-distant future

And wireless books in Japan.

Changes in medicine research in India.

And an Indian IP oped.

And another oped on IP in India.

And more, more from Thailand, as things heat up again in August.

More developments in India.

Ron Cass in the Wall Street Journal on TRIPS...

And a defense of Thailand from Sweden.

From India, regarding the medicine Glivec

All for now.