Granted Pharmaceutical Patents in Egypt

As part of ongoing efforts to make patent information for medicines more transparent, we have completed a preliminary review of pharmaceutical patents granted in Egypt between 1 January 2005 - 31 December 2010. The full report and analysis can be downloaded here.

The report is only a preliminary assessment as the full text of the granted Egyptian patents were not available to us at this time. As such the analysis was based on corresponding U.S., European and/or international patent (PCT) documents and whether they related to patents listed for marketed products on the U.S FDA Orange Book. However, with this initial information to hand, it is hoped that it will enable users to focus efforts and resources on obtaining the complete patent documents for those patents that may be of interest.

The projected was carried out in collaboration with Dina Iskander of the Egyptian Initiative for personal Rights, as part of her research on the impact of TRIPS on pharmaceutical patenting in Egypt.

Comments

[ken]

This is very interesting, thanks for sharing.

Evidently Egypt's patent law has a provision that involves the Ministry of Health in examining pharma patents. The way I was told that it works, at least on paper, is that when the EPO approves a pharma patent it is required to send it to the MoH, which has the right to prevent it from being granted. But a lot about this is unclear, in terms of whether EPO is required to send all pharma patents to MoH or just those that it regards as health-sensitive (and if the latter what the criteria are for determining whether or not to send), how the MoH goes about evaluating the ones it receives (if it receives any) and on what grounds. I don't know, for example, if any pharma patents granted by EPO have in actuality been blocked by MoH. I wonder if, while working with your colleague in Egypt, you came across this at all?

[Tahir Amin]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the comments, very informative and raises the ANVISA model in Brazil you've written about.

So I checked with my colleague Dina Iskander in Egypt and she informed me of the following:

"The patent office is required to send the patent applications to the MOH before it grants it and the MOH has 60 days, as far as I remember to respond if it cares to stop the patent. According to the patent office this has actually happened once up until December 2010. Unfortunately I do not know more details as per how the MOH evaluates it, but as per the law, the MOH is allowed to halt the patent grant for public health purposes."

I think building more empirical understanding around these particular mechanisms is needed in order to better understand how countries have used 'flexibilities'. There is a tendency to say countries have not used flexibilities without really knowing what is actually going on, on the ground.

Tahir