Foreign drugmakers may be refused registration of drugs in Russia

The Russian government, together with the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS), may provide a right to domestic companies to produce foreign drugs without the permission of a patent holder.

This will take place through the introduction of relevant ammendments to the Russian Civil Code, reports The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent.

According to Igor Artemyev, head of the FAS, this mainly applies to those drugs, whose producers abuse their dominant position in the market and refuse to produce or deliver these drugs to Russia without any reasonable grounds.

Mr Artemyev added that there are no effective mechanisms to address problems that arise in the case of failure of the supply of drugs, while the existing international regulations allow the use of the patent without permission of its owner and producer.