Drugs under Indian Systems of Medicines

New Delhi, September 01, 2013: There are 8785 licensed Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Homoeopathic Medicines manufacturing companies in the country.  State/UT-wise number of AYUSH drugs manufacturing units is annexed.  An allocation of Rs. 50 crore has been provided for establishing Homeopathic Medicines Pharmaceutical Corporation Limited in 12^th Five Year Plan.

As per Section 3 (j) and Section 3 (p) of the Indian Patents Act, 1970, medicinal plants as well as the products derived from medicinal plants, which is traditional knowledge or which is an aggregation or duplication of known properties of traditionally known component or components are not patentable.The Government has also established Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) for prevention of grant of patents by International Patent Offices on non-original inventions based on formulations mentioned in Indian Systems of Medicine. The TKDL is a digital database of traditional medicinal knowledge based on patent compatible format in five international languages- English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. Access to TKDL has been given to International Patent Offices under non-disclosure agreement for examination of patent applications with the objective of preventing misappropriation of traditional Indian medicinal knowledge. An Inter-disciplinary Monitoring and Analysis Team has been working in TKDL project to regularly screen the patent applications and patents granted on Indian Traditional Medicine worldwide and to file third-party observations along with TKDL evidences to the respective Patent Office to cancel/reject/withdraw the patent claim.  More than 2.83 lakh medicinal formulations of Indian Systems of Medicine have been codified in TKDL.

This information was given by the Minister ofState ofHealth & Family Welfare Smt. Santosh  Chowdhary in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today. — CCI Newswire