The recent posting from a news service about the Canadian court ruling on
whether or not a generic version of Mevacor can be marketed was an
extremely one-sided piece of writing. In fact, looking at the end of the
story it appears that this may be nothing more than a press release from
Merck. The entire issue around Linkage Regulations for pharmaceutical
patents in Canada is very complex and has generated an enormous amount of
heat between the multinational and generic companies. I'm not going to
defend the generic companies but I think that it is only fair to point out
that these Linkage Regulations do not apply to any other products except
pharmaceuticals. Generic companies make equally impassioned arguments
about why they are unfair.
If anyone is eager enough to delve into the intricacies of Canadian patent
law and wants to know more about this issue feel free to contact me
directly and I'll try and explain what is going on.
Joel
Joel Lexchin MD
121 Walmer Rd.
Toronto, Ontario
CANADA M5R 2X8
Phone: (416)-964-7186
Fax: (416)-923-9515
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