China releases measures to boost pharma IP protection
China’s government has announced a series of measures to increase the country’s importation of drugs, including enhanced IP protection in the pharmaceutical industry.
Chinese firm CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office shared the news on Monday, April 16.
On Thursday, April 12, the State Council of China held an executive meeting where it announced plans to implement measures which encourage the importation of innovative drugs into the Chinese market, enhance IP protection in the pharmaceutical industry, and lower medicine prices.
According to CCPIT the promise of enhanced IP protection is “exciting” for the pharmaceutical industry.
Under the measures the data exclusivity period for innovative chemical medicines will be a maximum of six years.
Also, parties applying to commercialise innovative medicines simultaneously in China and overseas will be eligible to use a maximum five-year patent term extension.
However, CCPIT said the specific rules regarding the data exclusivity period and patent term extension have not yet been determined.
CCPIT said the new measures mean that “more innovative medicines will be imported into China in the future and the IP protection for innovative medicines will be enhanced”.
The series of measures is to include exempting certain medicines from customs duties and expediting the process for the commercialisation of imported medicines.
Under the plans, no customs duty will exist for all cancer medications.
The measures will also enhance the quality-monitoring of imported medicines, through increasing the number of inspections of overseas manufacturing sites. In addition CCPIT said “severe measures” will be taken to address the manufacturing and selling of counterfeit drugs in China.
According to Chinese news outlet China.orgthe government’s measures will encourage healthcare companies to introduce innovative cancer drugs into the market and improve national health.
The announcement of the measures, which are due to come into effect on May 1, comes shortly after China’s government said it would introduce policies to encourage the production of generic drugs, to reduce the cost of medical bills.
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