EGA Press Statement

Thursday, 16 June 2005

The EGA welcomes the European Commission's finding against AstraZeneca for abusing the patent system to block competition from generic medicines.

We trust this judgment will serve as a reminder to all in the originator pharmaceutical industry that, while intellectual property protection for pharmaceutical products can serve as an incentive to innovation, abuse of the system and undue extensions of intellectual property eliminates competition from less expensive equivalent generic medicines.

Abuse of the patent system and moves to evergreen IP protection through multiple patents reduce the motivation to develop new treatments and adds millions of euro to healthcare budgets.

FURTHER READING:

On the EGA Web site:

• Intellectual Property Rights
• Pharmaceutical Patents
• EU Data Exclusivity
• What is Evergreening?

EU Commission Press Release

Bloomberg News Agency

Euractiv Report

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Tel: +32 (0)2 736 84 11 - .