Multinational Pharmaceutical major, Gilead Sciences, has decided to appeal against the decision of the Indian Patent Office to reject a patent application for its blockbuster drug sofosbuvir.
Section 3(d) of the Indian Patents Act does not give patent protection to those compounds that are seen as tweaked versions of a known compound unless it shows greater therapeutic efficacy. The granting of the patent for sofosbuvir was challenged by Natco and groups like Medicine and Access to Knowledge (I-MAK).
The World Health Organisation estimates 150 million people globally are chronic Hepatitis C with the highest patient count being in China (29.7 million), India (18.2 million) and Egypt (11.8 million). Sofosbuvir was introduced in the U.S. market in Nov. 2013.
