Posted At Globes.co.il
BY : Hadas Manor
"We're very concerned that Israel is not honoring the essential patent rights of ethical drug companies," European Union (EU) Ambassador to Israel Ramiro Cibrian Uzal told the Knesset Constitution, Justice, and Law Committee today. He thereby supported the US position on the issue. The committee's decision is due tomorrow.
"The European Commission is concerned about Israel's intention to amend its law for patents in the pharmaceutical industry. Such actions are inconsistent with Israel's commitments to the EU for proper and effective protection of intellectual property rights.," he added.
"The EU's position has been made known to Israel many times. Up until now, however, Israel has refused to take it into account, claiming that the proposed amendment is only a clarification of the existing situation with regard to patent extensions," he summed up.
Israel's generic industry, however, headed by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA), asserts that the amendment is designed to honor the legislators' original intention. They say that the Knesset never wanted to harm the ability to develop drugs and market them in other countries around the world before the extended patent period.
Manufacturers Association of Israel Chemical & Pharmaceutical society chairman and Teva VP Chaim Hurvitz says, "The reason that the ethical drug sector in Europe has been shrinking for the past decade, with most companies being swallowed up by US companies, is an intellectual property law that is unsuitable for the period.
"The European companies have lost the competition. Research has fled to the US, and most European countries have no developed generic industry able to compete with the US and Canada.
"That's a real pity," Hurvitz says," because Europe's potential is enormous, and medical insurance there is far more extensive than in the US. It's hard to understand why they're so anti-generic, which increases the costs of European governments."
Generic drugs are 70-80% cheaper than ethical drugs, and its is therefore also in the interest of the health systems to put them on the market as early as possible.
The US and the EU believe that the calculations of generic companies violate the ethical drug companies' intellectual property rights, which invest $900 million and 10-15 years in developing each ethical drug.
