Delivering the keynote address at the 32nd annual general meeting of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), he said any molecule or drug under open general licence and off patent for at least three to five years could perhaps be removed from the DPCO list. Making a case for greater research and development, he suggested the costs for indigenously developing the first five or ten molecules could be be financed to the extent of 50 per cent from a joint resource pool of the government and industry. He was in favour of output-linked incentives rather subsidies. Categorically ruling out any subsidy support, he said even tax-free royalty income could be considered.

In a post-decontrol scenario, Kelkar felt there could be incentives to reduce prices ofdrugs, and bring them back under DPCO if prices were raised beyond a certain level.

He listed lack of venture capital and insufficient foreign direct investment as problem areas and invited suggestions from the pharma industry which could be incorporated in the forthcoming budget, to address these issues.Kelkar urged pharma companies to prepare for IPR well before 2005 and said they should use the challenge to their advantage. Comparing it to the software industry and the Y2K challenge, he said the pharma sector had the potential to become a major export earner. Earlier, the Union minister of state for chemicals and fertilisers A K Patel said the government was not averse to considering further modifications to drug price control in response to changes in the environment.

Patel said that drug price control is not only resorted to in India but all over the world. "In a country like India, where general poverty and wide disparities in levels of income exist, and health insurance and State social securitycoverage is inadequate, special efforts are required to ensure the availability of medicines of good quality at reasonable prices. The DPCO is one such instrument to achieve this objective," he said.

He added that the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) had been given directions to bring about a greater degree of transparency as well as objectivity in price fixation matters.

Also speaking on the occassion, OPPI president D Bhadury urged the governmnt to settle the issue of drug price equalisation account claims. He was also of the opinion that IPR would encourage greater investment in research and development and urged the goverment to enact legislations for patent protection as soon as possible.