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14 April 2020Americas

USITC investigates grey market IVF products

The  US International Trade Commission (ITC) is investigating ‘grey market’ in vitro fertilisation (IVF) products intended for the Turkish market, following a trademark complaint from German pharmaceutical company  Merck KGaA.

The trade regulator announced yesterday, April 13 that it had launched a section 337 investigation, which deals with imported goods suspected of infringing US IP.

The investigation is based on a complaint filed by Massachusetts-based EMD Serono, a US brand owned by the Darmstadt-based company.

Merck claims that its own IVF products intended for sale in Turkey are entering the US without its authorisation.

This is often referred to as part of the ‘grey market’—products sold outside of the manufacturer’s authorised distribution channels or intended for a different jurisdiction.

Grey market goods run the risk of not complying with local labelling and packaging requirements, or other health and safety regulations. This is particularly true of pharmaceutical and health products.

Two Istanbul companies, Hermes Eczanesi and General Plastik Drug Stores, were named as respondents in the complaint.

The goods in question are alleged grey market versions of Merck’s Gonal-F and Ovidrel IVF products.

Abbott Laboratories settled a similar dispute with a Florida pharmacy in 2017 over international glucose test strips that were not approved by regulators for the US market.

Elsewhere,  Nestlé and  Red Bull have also targeted the sellers of grey market products intended for sale in non-US markets.

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More on this story

Americas
9 April 2020   Millipore Sigma, the US life sciences business of Merck KGaA, has secured a patent for its CRISPR-chrom technology, bringing its total number of CRISPR-related patents to 23.
Europe
14 November 2019   Merck has agreed to license its CRISPR gene-editing technology to German biotech company Evotec.