Top executives of American pharma companies favour "dialogue" with India and "not confrontation" to address their concerns on key issues like the protection of intellectual property (IP) and clinical trials.

Arguing that global pharma companies share the same goal of "patient first" with that of the Government of India, corporate executives attending the day-long "US-India BioPharma and Healthcare Summit" organised by the USA-India Chamber of Commerce said they should not be considered as adversaries by New Delhi.

While asserting there can be no compromise on IP protection issues, executives from top US pharma companies said that they are willing to work with India like tier pricing to come out with a solution, which is acceptable to the both the parties.

"We can sit around a table and have a dialogue. We need to move from seeing the industry as adversary to work together to help patients.

The only way we can do it is by having collaboration and actually a dialogue," Bahija Jallal, executive Vice President of MedImmune, a prominent bio-tech company, told PTI.

"We want to work together with the Indian Government. But we can't right now, go (to India) in a meaningful way if there is no IP protection," she said. Jallal added that New Delhi's compulsory licensing policies would force pharma companies to go to some other countries.

"The Government has to understand, the first thing that we care about is the patient. We can have a dialogue. Every country that we go to, we understand the different layers that exists economically," she said.

Dr Robert Langer, David J Koch Institute Professor at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), argued that not protecting intellectual property would destroy innovation in the long term.

Patents system, he said, is very important for encouraging many aspects of innovation.

"Having investment capital, having laws that encourages investment into innovation is important," Langer said.

PTI