Showing posts with label maraviroc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maraviroc. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Compulsory Licensing of Proprietary Drugs

Compulsory licensing is the process by which a country such as India grants a license to produce a patented proprietary drug without the consent of the patent holder. A provision of Indian patent law is that a compulsory license may be granted three years after a patent has been granted. The first case involves Natco Pharma, an Indian generic drug manufacturer, and Pfizer, the patent holder for maraviroc. As far as I can tell from searching the Internet, this case is still at the stage in which Natco requests a voluntary license from Pfizer. There was supposed to be a response from Pfizer by May 2011, and a negative response is expected. If someone has factual information on the status of this case, please share it.

Since this first case, it is now a matter of public record that Natco has applied for a compulsory license for Bayer's sorafenib. If you like you can skip to PDF p. 16, item 7 of the application.

Today's post is a continuation of my post Proprietary Drug Patents.