Author: Olga Gurgula
Abstract: Pharmaceutical companies have been increasingly exploiting the patent system to delay or even block generic competition. Some of these practices, such as ‘pay-for-delay’ agreements, have attracted the attention of competition authorities. However, other practices remain outside of competition authorities’ investigative activities in most jurisdictions. Among them are strategic accumulation of patents which is aimed at the procurement of numerous secondary patents that create multi-layer protection around a successful medicine. This practice has the capacity not only to increase drug prices, making them unaffordable for patients, but also may affect dynamic competition by stifling innovation of both originators and generic companies. Therefore, the current approach that views strategic accumulation of patents as lawful should be reconsidered in favour of investigating this practice under the competition law rules.
Citation: Gurgula, Olga, Anticompetitive Patent Strategies by Pharmaceutical Companies (April 24, 2023). This paper was presented at the International Scientific and Practical Conference ‘Second Scientific Readings in Memory of Professor G. V. Pronska’ held on 21 April 2023 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4427659
