India looking to supply generic drugs to Japan

After serving as "a lifeline to poor countries, supplying HIV drugs that have saved millions of lives … [n]ow India is aiming to become a drugs factory for rich countries such as Japan," which is looking to use more generic drugs in an effort to slow rising health care costs, Nature News reports. "But at the same time as India's drug companies look East, health advocates are concerned that the European Union's (EU's) demand for stricter patent rules on generics will hamper the country's ability to act as a pharmacy for the developing world," the magazine writes (Shetty, 6/21).