P C Chakraborty, deputy controller of patents and designs, will be the technical member on the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB).
Appellate board will meet on Nov 3
BANGALORE: P C Chakraborty, deputy controller of patents and designs, will be the technical member on the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). The board will hear the country’s first and most contentious patent fight initiated by Swiss pharma major Novartis against the rejection of patent protection for its $3.1 billion cancer drug Glivec in India.
The appointment comes in the wake of the Supreme Court suggestion on Tuesday to the Centre on the appointment of an expert member on the IPAB.
The apex court was acting on a special leave petition filed by Natco Pharma against the November 2007 ruling of the Madras High Court approving a government suggestion to allow IPAB to go ahead with the patent rejection hearing case without a technical member.
The Chennai patents office had refused Novartis a patent in January 2006 on the drug when the latter appealed to the IPAB. On an appeal by Novartis, the Madras High Court had ruled that the case could be heard without a technical member. Hearing Natco Pharma’s appeal on Tuesday, Justice SH Kapadia and Justice B Sudershan Reddy had suggested the centre should appoint a fresh technical member.
The ruling and the subsequent appointment of the technical member has far-reaching significance for the Indian pharma industry.
Now the IPAB will hold a meeting on November 3 to finalise the modalities for hearing the case, an official of Natco Pharma said. Representatives from six respondent companies including Natco, Ranbaxy Labs, Hetero Drugs, Cipla and Novartis will be present, he added.
Glivec was the first product in India to be granted exclusive marketing rights (EMR), giving Novartis the right to be the only company that can produce and market the drug in India. The company started enforcing the EMR by asking for an injunction against generic manufacturers in the Madras HC. The same was granted in January 2004.
According to industry representatives once the generic manufacturers stopped producing Glivec, its price shot up from approximately Rs 10,000 for a month’s dose to around Rs 1,20,000. This forced Indian generics makers to go in appeal against the order.
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