(I was born and raised in India, now involved in biomed research in US). This is absolutely and completely correct. For every compound that makes to the clinic,

(I was born and raised in India, now involved in biomed research in US). This is absolutely and completely correct. For every compound that makes to the clinic, there are 1000s that fail at the preclinical or clinical stages: worst case in Phase III when 100s of millions of dollars have already been spent on it. India, in its shortsighted view, is refusing to acknowledge the effort and money that goes into bringing a molecule to the clinic. India is notoriously shortsighted when it comes to biomedical research. Here's a classic example: In response to a Texas company that tried to patent an indigenous Basmati species under the name Texmati, the govt imposed a blanket ban on the export of any indigenous DNA outside. What is the result of that? When the global HAPMAP projects began to genotype humans of all races and ethnicity and trace human history, Indians couldn't be genotyped because of the (Texmati) DNA law. HAPMAP ended up recruiting Indians living in US and UK. Now when the world is starting to reap some of the benefits of HAPMAP, India is at the forefront criticizing "bullies" like the US for not paying attention to diseases with restricted incidence in, say, India.