A few weeks ago, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal quoted a Swiss official as saying that India might attract investments of $150 billion, if it adopted data exclusivity. The minister was hinting at a rethink of the long-held policy of limiting proprietary prerogatives—exclusive manufacturing and marketing rights—for innovators of pharmaceutical drugs and agrochemicals to the defined period of patent protection. Under domestic laws, third parties are allowed to rely on the innovators’ data submitted to the regulators, for their own commercial ventures, including for launch of the so-called “me-too” products.

The minister’s comments came in the context of a reference to data exclusivity in India’s new free trade agreement ( FTA ) with the European Free Trade Association and m

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