There is going to be demand from health activists and generic pharma makers to seek more such compulsory licenses on essential drugs, which were patented after 1995 under the TRIPS agreement in many developing countries.

The Nexavar test case has indicated that patent holder of vital drugs will be subjected to more scrutiny by major stakeholders of the public health system in the coming months. Patent holder will be forced to act on their patents to benefit people rather than use the rights to price such products out of the reach of the thousands of patients who could potentially benefit from such innovations.

The pharma industry will have to come up with suitable mechanisms to avoid more requests of compulsory licensing and avoid a public relations disaster by seeming to act in a way to reap undue benefits at the cost of needy patients. What use is an innovative drug, if it can't help to cure patients who need it the most, will be the question that will reverberate in communities around the world after this Indian decision on Nexavar.

ABLE expressed its concerns by pointing out that the momentum and global image of India's focus on innovation might be at risk, at a time when the Indian government has declared this as the "Decade of Innovation".