Transcending the genre
超越世俗(来源:《经济学人》
Few Indian firms are creating drugs, rather than recreating them
只有少数印度公司正在创造药品而不是仿制药品
SMUGGLED away in the northern reaches of Mumbai is a 19,000-square-metre (200,000-square-foot)playground for chemists and biologists. The research centre, built by Nicholas Piramal (NPIL), India'sfourth-biggest pharmaceutical firm, was conjured up in just 13 months for $20m. The walls are decorated with works of art, some tracing the Sanskrit chanted by yogis. Unlike them, however, the facility cannot
transcend its surroundings. Its library carpet is being replaced because of monsoon flooding; outside, an awning, held aloft by bamboo scaffolding, helps to keep the rain at bay.
在孟买北部有一座化学家和生物学家的乐园，方圆1900平方米（20万平方英尺）。这座研发中心是由印度第四大制药企业Nicholas Piramal用13个月的时间，投资2000万美元建造的。墙上装饰着许多艺术品，画得是瑜珈修行者在歌唱梵语圣歌。然而这些陈设却不能超越它周围的环境。图书馆里的地毯由于雨季的影响不得不重新更换；外面有一个竹子搭的雨棚，用来遮挡海边吹来的风雨。
Inside, scientists enjoy all the latest toys. Arun Balakrishnan, vice-president for screening andbiotechnology, takes particular delight in a screening robot, one of India's first. Its four arms pick up glass plates, each dotted with 96 human-cell samples. A battery of pipettes squirts the cells with agents, to see if they react. It is fast. The company has screened thousands of varieties of plant and microbe searching for agents that might help fight inflammation, cancer or diabetes.
研究中心里面，科学家们使用的是最先进的设备。负责筛选与生物技术的副总裁Arun Balakrishnan先生对一个筛选机器人特别青睐（这是印度目前拥有的最先进的机器人之一），机器人的四个手臂都端着玻璃板，每个玻璃板里点缀着96个人体细胞的样品。一个电动移液器在向细胞喷射药液来观察它们的反应。它的筛选速度是很快的，公司已经筛选了数千种植物和微生物以寻找可以抗炎症、癌症和糖尿病的物质。
The robot is from Tecan, a Swiss company. But the squirts are home-grown: extracts from India's rich variety of flora, which NPIL is keen to map. The facility has a fine collection of mushrooms, Dr Balakrishnan says; some grow like tall grasses; others resemble snowflakes. With 70m rupees ($1.8m) of government money, the company has joined forces with the National Institute of Oceanography in Goa and eight other research institutes to root out microbes for NPIL's laboratory to test. An earlier venture of this kind has already shown promise. The oceanographers discovered a molecule in India's deep southern seas which can fight strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as the infamous MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus).
NPIL is impressive but not representative. It now spends 6% of its revenues on R&D, and at least seven drugs in its pipeline count as “new chemical entities”. No other Indian company can beat that; precious few even try.
机器人是瑞士的Tecan公司生产的，但是（电动喷射器）里喷出的药液则是从印度本土丰富的植物中提取出的，NPIL公司正是热衷于这样做，这样做的便利之处在于公司有很好的蘑菇收藏。 Balakrishnan博士说它们中的一些像草一样，一些则像雪花。公司获得了印度政府7000万卢比（180万美元）的资助，和在果阿的印度国家海洋学研究院建立了合作关系，除此之外还有8个研究机构为NPIL公司的实验室提供检测用的微生物。这种冒险在早些时候已经显示了希望。海洋学者在印度的南部深海中发现了一种微粒可以对抗那些对抗生素有抵抗力的细菌，例如臭名卓著的耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌。
然而像NPIL这样的制药公司在印度并没有代表性，它敢于将自己销售收入的6%用于研发，它的产品线里至少有7种药可以算新化学实体。没有其他印度制药公司在这方面能击败它，甚至敢于这样尝试的都很少。
Prior to 2005 India's patent laws did not protect newly discovered compounds, only the process of making them. This had predictable results on the evolution of the industry. Discovery went unrewarded, so it went largely undone. Instead firms turned out cheap, generic knock-offs of other people's drugs. The industry ranks fourth in the world by volume; but only 13th by value.Thanks to India's WTO obligations, its law now respects patents on products invented after 1995. (Precisely how much respect it bestows is still being worked out in the courts—in August, for example,the Chennai High Court ruled that Novartis's drug Gleevec was not new enough to deserve protection.)
But despite the new law, imitation still crowds out invention, if only because of the “cultural mindset” it has bequeathed, says Ms Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon. Few companies are prepared to take the deep risks that new drug research entails.
Even NPIL plans to spin off its drug-discovery arm as a new company in which it will hold an 18% stake.Investment in this kind of work calls for a “longer time horizon” and “higher risk appetite”, the company notes. Invention is a fine thing, but best done on somebody else's balance sheet.
在2005年之前，印度的专利法并不对新发现的化合物进行保护，而只保护制造它们的工艺。我们可以预见到这样做对这个产业发展的影响，研发得不到应有的报偿，所以没人去做，印度公司都采用更简单，廉价的方法把目标转向了仿制别人的药品。现在印度的制药行业在总量上可以排到世界第四而价值却只能排到世界的第13位。因为印度加入了WTO需要履行责任，它的法律为1995以后发明的产品提供专利保护。（具体如何尊重还要看法院是如何处理的，例如今年8月钦奈高等法院判决诺华的新药Gleevec创新性不够因而不应当给予保护）
尽管已经有了新的法律，模仿者还是比发明者多得多，Biocon（康奥公司）的Mazumdar-Shaw女士说但愿这只是一种文化价值取向的遗传。很少有公司愿意承担研发新药所必须承担的风险。即使是NPIL公司也准备将它的药品研发公司剥离出来成立一个新公司，自己只持有18%的股份。印度的公司都注意到投资这一领域需要有很长远的眼光和高风险偏好的，发明是一件好事情，可是在一些人看来做好自己的资产负债表才是最重要的。
超越世俗(来源:《经济学人》
Few Indian firms are creating drugs, rather than recreating them
只有少数印度公司正在创造药品而不是仿制药品
SMUGGLED away in the northern reaches of Mumbai is a 19,000-square-metre (200,000-square-foot)playground for chemists and biologists. The research centre, built by Nicholas Piramal (NPIL), India'sfourth-biggest pharmaceutical firm, was conjured up in just 13 months for $20m. The walls are decorated with works of art, some tracing the Sanskrit chanted by yogis. Unlike them, however, the facility cannot
transcend its surroundings. Its library carpet is being replaced because of monsoon flooding; outside, an awning, held aloft by bamboo scaffolding, helps to keep the rain at bay.
在孟买北部有一座化学家和生物学家的乐园，方圆1900平方米（20万平方英尺）。这座研发中心是由印度第四大制药企业Nicholas Piramal用13个月的时间，投资2000万美元建造的。墙上装饰着许多艺术品，画得是瑜珈修行者在歌唱梵语圣歌。然而这些陈设却不能超越它周围的环境。图书馆里的地毯由于雨季的影响不得不重新更换；外面有一个竹子搭的雨棚，用来遮挡海边吹来的风雨。
Inside, scientists enjoy all the latest toys. Arun Balakrishnan, vice-president for screening andbiotechnology, takes particular delight in a screening robot, one of India's first. Its four arms pick up glass plates, each dotted with 96 human-cell samples. A battery of pipettes squirts the cells with agents, to see if they react. It is fast. The company has screened thousands of varieties of plant and microbe searching for agents that might help fight inflammation, cancer or diabetes.
研究中心里面，科学家们使用的是最先进的设备。负责筛选与生物技术的副总裁Arun Balakrishnan先生对一个筛选机器人特别青睐（这是印度目前拥有的最先进的机器人之一），机器人的四个手臂都端着玻璃板，每个玻璃板里点缀着96个人体细胞的样品。一个电动移液器在向细胞喷射药液来观察它们的反应。它的筛选速度是很快的，公司已经筛选了数千种植物和微生物以寻找可以抗炎症、癌症和糖尿病的物质。
The robot is from Tecan, a Swiss company. But the squirts are home-grown: extracts from India's rich variety of flora, which NPIL is keen to map. The facility has a fine collection of mushrooms, Dr Balakrishnan says; some grow like tall grasses; others resemble snowflakes. With 70m rupees ($1.8m) of government money, the company has joined forces with the National Institute of Oceanography in Goa and eight other research institutes to root out microbes for NPIL's laboratory to test. An earlier venture of this kind has already shown promise. The oceanographers discovered a molecule in India's deep southern seas which can fight strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as the infamous MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus).
NPIL is impressive but not representative. It now spends 6% of its revenues on R&D, and at least seven drugs in its pipeline count as “new chemical entities”. No other Indian company can beat that; precious few even try.
机器人是瑞士的Tecan公司生产的，但是（电动喷射器）里喷出的药液则是从印度本土丰富的植物中提取出的，NPIL公司正是热衷于这样做，这样做的便利之处在于公司有很好的蘑菇收藏。 Balakrishnan博士说它们中的一些像草一样，一些则像雪花。公司获得了印度政府7000万卢比（180万美元）的资助，和在果阿的印度国家海洋学研究院建立了合作关系，除此之外还有8个研究机构为NPIL公司的实验室提供检测用的微生物。这种冒险在早些时候已经显示了希望。海洋学者在印度的南部深海中发现了一种微粒可以对抗那些对抗生素有抵抗力的细菌，例如臭名卓著的耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌。
然而像NPIL这样的制药公司在印度并没有代表性，它敢于将自己销售收入的6%用于研发，它的产品线里至少有7种药可以算新化学实体。没有其他印度制药公司在这方面能击败它，甚至敢于这样尝试的都很少。
Prior to 2005 India's patent laws did not protect newly discovered compounds, only the process of making them. This had predictable results on the evolution of the industry. Discovery went unrewarded, so it went largely undone. Instead firms turned out cheap, generic knock-offs of other people's drugs. The industry ranks fourth in the world by volume; but only 13th by value.Thanks to India's WTO obligations, its law now respects patents on products invented after 1995. (Precisely how much respect it bestows is still being worked out in the courts—in August, for example,the Chennai High Court ruled that Novartis's drug Gleevec was not new enough to deserve protection.)
But despite the new law, imitation still crowds out invention, if only because of the “cultural mindset” it has bequeathed, says Ms Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon. Few companies are prepared to take the deep risks that new drug research entails.
Even NPIL plans to spin off its drug-discovery arm as a new company in which it will hold an 18% stake.Investment in this kind of work calls for a “longer time horizon” and “higher risk appetite”, the company notes. Invention is a fine thing, but best done on somebody else's balance sheet.
在2005年之前，印度的专利法并不对新发现的化合物进行保护，而只保护制造它们的工艺。我们可以预见到这样做对这个产业发展的影响，研发得不到应有的报偿，所以没人去做，印度公司都采用更简单，廉价的方法把目标转向了仿制别人的药品。现在印度的制药行业在总量上可以排到世界第四而价值却只能排到世界的第13位。因为印度加入了WTO需要履行责任，它的法律为1995以后发明的产品提供专利保护。（具体如何尊重还要看法院是如何处理的，例如今年8月钦奈高等法院判决诺华的新药Gleevec创新性不够因而不应当给予保护）
尽管已经有了新的法律，模仿者还是比发明者多得多，Biocon（康奥公司）的Mazumdar-Shaw女士说但愿这只是一种文化价值取向的遗传。很少有公司愿意承担研发新药所必须承担的风险。即使是NPIL公司也准备将它的药品研发公司剥离出来成立一个新公司，自己只持有18%的股份。印度的公司都注意到投资这一领域需要有很长远的眼光和高风险偏好的，发明是一件好事情，可是在一些人看来做好自己的资产负债表才是最重要的。