Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical group, is likely to switchhundreds of millions of dollars in planned investments from India to other locations in the next few years in response to an Indian court ruling that weakensintellectual property rights on new medicines.

In his first detailed comments on the rejection this month of his bid to protect the patent on Glivec, the company's cancer medicine, Daniel Vasella, chief executive of Novartis, told the Financial Times that his "concrete plans" for investments in research in India stalled during the trial and the company would now go elsewhere instead.