Editorial
Apathy to the power of 3 — the government, judiciary, and pharma companies on patented drug pricing
On September 28, 2026, the Kerala High Court passed a judgment [1] interpreting Section 100 of the Patents Act (PA), 1970, to mean that the government has the power to manufacture a patented medicine for non-commercial supply to needy patients. However, the judgment provides little or no concrete relief to those without access to expensive medicines and healthcare, as it fails to direct the government to take immediate action to have the medicines manufactured and supplied at low cost or free to patients in need.
Copyright and license ©Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2026: Open Access and Distributed under the Creative Commons license ( CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits only non-commercial and non-modified sharing in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
