Indian medicine accounted for over 50 per cent of all drug seizures in Europe for intellectual property rights violation last year. Industry experts said this indicates the seriousness of the problem. This data was revealed in the recently-released 2009 report of the European Union on the customs enforcement activities of its member states.
Industry sources said that the data should strengthen the resolve of the government to take up the issue at the World Trade Organisation's dispute resolution forum.
Most of the medicine seized was of the “lifestyle” category, which is typically used for non-critical ailments.
Of all the cases taken up by the EU customs authorities, just over 6 per cent were related to suspected patent infringement. The bulk (over 93 per cent) was intercepted on the suspicion of trademark infringements.
According to the report, the authorities seized 3,207 cases containing 8.89 million articles as part of its IPR protection drive during 2008. Indian medicines accounted 51.62 per cent of all seizures, it said.
The report also said seizures of medicines from India showed an increase of 118 per cent over the previous year. While 50 per cent of all articles were intercepted in import procedures, 26 per cent were in transit and 21 per cent in re-export.
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“More than half of the articles suspected of trademark infringements were detained in import procedures, a quarter in transit procedures and the rest during re-export procedures or were discovered in customs warehouses. Almost all the suspected patent infringement cases were intercepted in re-export procedures,” the report said.
According to EU, the increase in seizures was on account of different reasons, including EU-wide priority action “medifake” carried out during the period. Medifake had targeted illegal medicines and led to over 32 million medicinal products being stopped by customs, of which more than 15 per cent were suspected of infringing IPRs.
Also during the course of that action, more than 25 million items containing drug precursors (raw materials) were also stopped equaling to the production of 25 million doses with an estimated value of ¤50 million, the report said.