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Protection of Medicaments

Peculiarities of the Protection Conferred to Medicaments in Europe

• Author: Dr. Ralf Perrey and Dr. Konstanze Lenhard
• Date: 12. August 2009

When launching medicaments on the European market, pharmaceutical companies should be aware of the possibilities and legal consequences involved by their own or third party's IP rights in this highly competitive field of business. Moreover, the balance between IP rights, the principle of free trade and the public interest should be kept in mind when seeking commercial success in the pharmaceutical sector in Europe. Therefore, in the following article an overview of peculiarities concerning the protection conferred to medicaments relating to patent term extension, parallel imports and exhaustion of IP rights, as well as generic medicaments in Europe will be given. In particular, this article might be suited as a basis for practitioners in the field of pharmacology to deal with strategic questions on commercial exploitations of existing IP rights and of medicaments already put or to be put on the European market.

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