Patent News

India Withdraw Roche Hepatitis Patent
On Friday, an Indian panel cancels a patent granted to Swiss giant Roche for a hepatitis C drug, scoring the newest slow down for global pharmaceutical firms in the country's $12 billion medicine sell. The Intellectual Property Appellate Board inverted the patent honored by the Indian Patent Office to Hoffmann-La Roche's drug Pegasys, citing a require of confirmation that it was a "new class" of medicine.

The decision represents one more propel to western drug firms in India that have been looking to the country of 1.2 billion people to increase sales but are concerned about patent protection and panic competition from its broad knockoffs. While Roche can still face up to the decision in India's courts, patients' sponsorship groups called the ruling a major victory.

"If we find the produce of lower-costing generic drugs, millions affecting from hepatitis C both in India and internationally will advantage," said patients' rights lawyer Anand Grover. "This is a grand win for hepatitis C patients," Grover told AFP. India is the world's foremost exporter and producer of low-priced, non-branded medicines mostly to other poor, developing countries.

The patent petition board said on Friday it had found no testimony that Pegasys was a "new class" of drug. "In the ending, the creation is held to be clear," the board said, ordering the patent to be "put aside". The judgment was in reply to a petition against the patent suited by a Mumbai non-profit group, The Sankal Rehabilitation Trust, which aids drug users who regularly contract hepatitis C through make use of dirty needles.

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