The Hindu Business Line : Demand perks up for IP experts in pharma sector

Dr Anindya Sircar, who holds a Ph.D in microbiology, started out as a scientist but got caught up with "legal affairs". With a law degree in hand, he became a registered patent attorney and has been steering Biocon Ltd's IPR Department for several years now.

His team, up from a one-man army to six legally tuned scientists, stands guard over the company's increasing intellectual assets.

In the past five years, says Dr Sircar, the workload of searching, documenting, drafting, and filing patents, evaluating in-house assets, and working to prevent violations has increased so much that they partly outsource it to external attorneys.

This is one bit of the unfolding intellectual property (IP) mosaic in the pharma and biotechnology industry. In the past 2-3 years, medium to large generic drug companies as well as innovators have been stacking up their defence or attack lines for patents and regulated markets, according to industry insiders.

Take a bulk drugs and contract manufacturer like Hikal Ltd. It plans to start a small IP cell of modest outlay at its R&D centre in Bangalore, according to its technology brass.

In what Dr Sircar calls the "growing IP consciousness," there is more R&D recruitment, increased patent filings, and significantly rising IP budgets in the sector. Ask for numbers and the lips are sealed on "proprietary information."

Dr Sircar will only say that IP remains part of a company's R&D spend, though IP expenses have grown from a few reluctant lakhs of rupees to several crores.

Ranbaxy Labs and Dr Reddy's Labs say that they put in place large IP teams in the late 90s in India and the US.

But the heightened activity now is because there is focus on innovation, according to a Ranbaxy spokesman and Dr Sircar; many are increasing their business in the regulated US and European markets, and foreign companies are interested in doing business in India, besides the generics challenge.

The Indian IP rush came late with an impending product patent regime, sealed under the Patent (Amendment) Act 2005.

For Indian companies, the patent filing costs are mounting. But maintaining one's IP is costlier and very people-intensive, according to Mr Murali Krishnan, President (Finance) of Biocon.

That has created a demand for IP law talent. But R&D companies would rather teach law to scientists, say Dr Sircar and Mr Raghu Cidambi, Head of Strategic Planning & Corporate IP Management, Dr Reddy's Labs.

Mr Kalyan Chakravarthy Kankanala, Chief Knowledge Officer at Brain League, a Bangalore-based IP firm, says that there is a dearth of 5,000 patent agents at companies and patent offices. Only 50 of the 750 registered agents are practitioners.

The Institute of Bioinformatics & Applied Biotechnology has jumped into the fray. Dr Nishi Mahapatra, Head, Executive Education (Professionals), says that IBAB now offers workshops for patent agents.

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