The access and benefit-sharing protocol on biodiversity may do little to deter multinationals from grabbing the planet’s resources.

In principle, generic pharma production could supply developing countries with all the drugs they need. In practice, matters are more difficult. Zafrullah Chowdhury shed light on this complex matter in an interview with Hans Dembowski.

Multinational pharma producers are based in rich nations and demand high prices, thus hampering supply of medicine to the developing world. Globally enforced patents serve to protect high prices. At the same time, few new medicines are being developed for the health problems that mostly affect poor countries.

The marine realm represents 70% of the surface of the biosphere and contains a rich variety of organisms, including more than 34 of the 36
living phyla, some of which are only found in the oceans.

Piper betle L. is one of the important plants in the Asiatic region which ranks second to coffee and tea in terms of daily consumption. Though the plant is known for abuse, in recent years several reports have been pub-
lished on the effects of the plant extract and chemical constituents on different biological activities in vitro and in vivo.

The US government

In a new report, a blue-ribbon panel decries India's systemic failure to capitalize on basic research findings. The report, released last week by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, offers a stinging indictment of India's scientific frailties, noting that science here is "severely hampered by oppressive bureaucratic practices and inflexible administrative and financial controls." Titled India as a Global Leader in Science, the "vision document" also offers a blueprint for strengthening Indian science—one that will require heaps of money to implement.

It is scandalous that India is yet to issue a single compulsory licence for a drug after the 2005 amendment. (Editorial)