By: Stephanie Bodoni and Aoife White
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com

The European Union’s highest courtbacked extended patent protection for drugs and vaccines thatare effective against multiple diseases.
“The fundamental objective” of the EU rules in question“is to ensure sufficient protection to encourage pharmaceuticalresearch, which plays a decisive role in the continuingimprovement in public health,” the EU Court of Justice, basedin Luxembourg, said in a ruling today.
The case seeks to provide the pharmaceutical industry withclarity on how to interpret EU rules on so-called supplementaryprotection certificates, or extended patent protection, formultidisease drugs or vaccines. The value of even a few monthsof extra protection for a blockbuster drug can’t be understated,said Jonathan Radcliffe, a lawyer at Mayer Brown LLP in London.
Extending patent protection would help drugmakers just asthe competition from generic drugs reaches its peak. Through2016, drug companies face loss of exclusivity on products withmore than $170 billion of sales, according to BloombergIndustries research. Next year drugs producing almost $50billion in revenue face potential competition.

Medeva SPC

The extended patent protection, or SPC, can only be givento the company that owns the patent on a drug’s activeingredient. Today’s case arose after a unit of Medeva HoldingsBV, which belongs to Celltech Pharma Europe Ltd., was refusedsuch SPCs in the U.K. for multi-disease vaccines that consistedof patented and non-patented active ingredients. A judge inLondon sought the EU court’s guidance on how to interpret theregion’s SPC rules.
The EU court adopted a narrower approach than many drugcompanies expected by reiterating that only one SPC can be givenper patent, Radcliffe said in a phone interview.
“It could have a chilling effect on the strategies life-sciences companies will have to adopt, and on their revenues,”said Radcliffe, adding in some cases multiple SPCs have beengranted per patent.
The cases are: C-322/10, Medeva BV v. Comptroller-Generalof Patents; C-422/10, Georgetown University, University ofRochester, Loyola University of Chicago v. Comptroller-Generalof Patents, Designs and Trade Marks.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-24/eu-court-backs-longer-patent-protection-on-medicines-for-multiple-diseases.html