Compulsory licences on pharmaceutical patents in India: A short article

Abstract

Over the last few years, multiple media reports have commented on compulsory licensing of pharmaceutical patents in India. A majority of these reports painted a doomsday scenario and were devoid of facts. The grant of India’s sole compulsory licence in March 2012 (to Natco for Bayer’s patented drug – Sorafenib) spawned a series of media reports theorising that the grant of this compulsory license was ‘… a major blow to global pharmaceutical firms’ and speculating a beginning of compulsory licensing era for pharmaceuticals patents. However, this simply has happened and India till date has rejected all subsequent compulsory licence applications filed after the Natco/Sorafenib compulsory license application. The purpose of the present article is to collate the present information around the various compulsory licences in India and provide some historical background at a time when even developed countries are beginning to issue compulsory licences for pharmaceutical products.