# \[e-drug\] Successful pre-grant opposition to nevirapine syrup patent in India **URL:** \ **Category:** e-drug\ **Created:** [June 27, 2008, 8:15am UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-successful-pre-grant-opposition-to-nevirapine-syrup-patent-in-india/30145 "2008-06-27T08:15:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Seco\_GERARD1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c57346/32.png) [@Seco\_GERARD1](https://talk.edrugplus.org/u/Seco_GERARD1)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 8:15am UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-successful-pre-grant-opposition-to-nevirapine-syrup-patent-in-india/30145/1 "2008-06-27T08:15:55Z")
E-DRUG: Successful pre-grant opposition to nevirapine syrup patent in India ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pre-grant Opposition in India Leads to Rejection of ARV Patent, Setting Critical Precedent!! Great news! For the first time, a pre-grant opposition filed by Indian civil society for an antiretroviral (ARV) has led to a patent rejection. This sets an important precedent for the remaining 12 ARV oppositions filed and is an important victory for access to medicines across the developing world. The Indian Patent Office on 11 June rejected the patent application filed in 1998 by German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim for nevirapine syrup, used in the treatment of children living with HIV/AIDS. The patent decision was based on the opposition filed on technical and public health grounds by the Positive Women's Network and the Indian Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS in 2006. This ruling represents a landmark legal precedent in Indian civil society's fight to ensure that India's strict patent law is upheld and patents are not granted frivolously. India's 2005 patent law allows any interested party to oppose patents under review by the patent office, or after they have been granted. Affected groups in India have been investing tremendous effort over the last several years to take advantage of the patent law's public health safeguards, in order to protect and promote access to treatment for themselves and their counterparts across the developing world. As much of the developing world relies on affordable medicines produced in India, these efforts have a global impact. India's patent law does not consider improvements or new forms of known medicines to be patentable. The opposition argued that the syrup formulation of nevirapine was a new form of a known drug first invented in 1989, and thus older than the 1995 cut-off that India's Patents Act considers eligible for patenting. Pharmaceutical companies make variations to existing medicines in order to extend their monopolies for as long as possible - a tactic called 'evergreening.' To extend its patent monopoly to 2018, Boehringer in 1998 applied for patents on the syrup formulation of nevirapine in many developing countries, including India. The decision refers extensively to the August 2007 Indian High Court ruling in Novartis' legal action against the Indian government and its patent law. The judgement against Novartis upheld the public health safeguards enshrined in India's law, e.g. preventing evergreening. This patent rejection shows how important the safeguards in India's patent law are and how crucial it is that civil society mobilizes to make sure patents are not granted that should not be. Unnecessary patenting leads to the restriction of competition and therefore to high prices. Seco GERARD Advisor, Analysis and Advocacy Unit, Gen Dir. MSF Rue Dupré 94 1090 Brussels 32 2 475 36 34 (dir off)