And India’s first compulsory license survives the entire journey through the Indian legal system! The Supreme Court today dismissed Bayer’s Special Leave Petition against the decision of the Bombay High Court upholding the grant of a compulsory license for Bayer’s anticancer drug Nexavar. This represents a hat trick for Natco, who have won all three appeals at the IPAB stage, High Court stage and now, the SC.
Here is the text of the SC order:
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
In the facts of the present case, we are not inclined to interfere. The Special Leave Petition is dismissed, keeping all questions of law open.
This marks an important victory for access to medicines advocates across the country. See this post. The earlier judgments lay down important standards for the grant of Compulsory Licenses, based on the interpretation of the Patents Act and it will be interesting to see whether we will get a more detailed judgment from the SC. We will bring more analysis once we get access to the SLP as filed and other connected documents.
