Indian hearings on Bayer Nexavar compulsory license delayed

India's Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) in Chennai has postponed hearing the appeal by German pharmaceutical major Bayer (BAYB: DE) over the granting of a compulsory licence for its cancer drug Nexavar (sorafenib tosylate) to Indian generic company Natco Pharma (524816: BY) until Monday September 3, Bayer confirmed to The Pharma Letter, without explaining the reason for the delay from the scheduled start of August 21.

In March 2012, India issued its first ever compulsory licence allowing Natco to produce more affordable versions of the cancer drug sorafenib tosylate patented by Bayer. India’s Controller of Patents deemed that Bayer had failed to price the drug, marketed as Nexavar, at an affordable level and had made insufficient efforts to make the medicine available (TPL March 13).

Bayer told TPL in an e-mailed statement that the company strongly disagrees with the conclusions of the Patent Controller of India and appealed his order on May 4, 2012 with the Intellectual Property Appellate Board.