The Copyists' Road

Word came of how India learned to make the world's pills. Ambrose: for decades India ignored drug patents, and its makers patented the copying. Pim will copy his snail. The Toll Keeper: four years for an American factory, one in India, says an executive. Prudence: decades of copying, dear, and now a factory in a year.

India became the world's generic drug maker by design: starting in the 1970s it refused to recognise drug patents and let its firms patent their ways of reverse-engineering Western medicines, so by the time its patent law met WTO rules in 2005 its companies were already experts; Americans switched too, with generics more than half of US prescriptions by 2002; and a factory that takes four years to set up in the US or Europe can be competitive within a year in India, one executive says.

Starring

🎙️The NarratorAmbrosePimThe Toll KeeperPrudence