A city pharma company has filed a criminal complaint about 'theft' of some of its technologies by a senior executive responsible for technology management of its products. The executive quit the job as the management suspected him.

According to M Adinarayana, the general manager (corporate affairs) of Natco Pharma, the company has now started an exercise on similar possible ‘thefts' by executives who have left the company over the recent years.

In the latest case, the company was able to lay hands on the culprit before the technology could fall into the hands of rivals, he said.

Natco has taken a serious view of the matter as some of the technologies suspected to have been stolen are in the process of being patented by the company.

Adinarayana said in a release that it  is not only Natco but several other pharma companies that are facing such   threats to their intellectual property,  as some companies encourage such dubious methods of getting onto others' process technologies for manufacture of high value  active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Natco has made an appeal to Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association and Indian Pharmaceutical Association to take initiative to check recurrence of such events.

The solution lies in all the pharma companies  undertaking a firm resolve to keep at bay the persons  involved in these nefarious activities, the Natco release said.

The advent of new communication technologies  has made their job easier, thus commented a chief executive of a city-based pharma major on the current development.

Theft of process technologies has come to pose a grave risk to the industry whose survival is dependent upon the hard-earned in-house knowledge.