Russian generic drugmakers plot ways to launch copies in domestic market

Russian generics producers have designed alternative ways for the launch of their products in the domestic market, bypassing the patents of Western drugmakers, reports The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent.

One of such companies is Nativa, which after the imposition of a ban on the launch of an analogue of Novartis’ (NOVN: VX) anticancer drug nilotinib (trade name Tasigna) decided to transfer the registration of its generic to one of its subsidiaries with the further change of its name.

The Russian company received a certificate for its generic, known as Nilotinib-nativ in 2016. A year later, Novartis, which owns the rights to Tasigna, secured a ban on the commercialization of the generic in the Moscow Region Arbitration Court until the original patent expires in 2023. This was one of the first and most notorious patent disputes in the Russian pharmaceutical market, the decision on which was taken in a favor of a foreign patent holder. Nativa tried to challenge the decision, as well as obtain a compulsory license to produce an analogue of Tasigna, but lost the trial.