COLOMBIA | Regulatory | First successful registration of company interested in cultivating Cannabis to manufacture and export products for medical purposes
.
CannaVida S.A.S. is the first company to obtain a registration before the Colombian Narcotics Fund (Fondo Nacional de Estupefacientes –FNE- in Spanish), complying with the first requirement to apply for a crop license, a manufacturing license and an exportation license of Cannabis for medical and scientific purposes. According to Decree 2467 (2015), the registration before the FNE (which controls legal access to narcotics) is mandatory in order to apply for the subsequent licenses.
COLOMBIA | Patents | IP Office grants crystal structure patent
.
Through Regulation No. 90.232 (2015) the Colombian Patent Office (CPO) recently granted a patent to Novartis AG, protecting a crystalline form (polymorph) of an active ingredient useful for treating respiratory diseases (3-(3-{2-[(E)-3,5-Diamino-6-chloro-pyrazine-2-carbonylimino]-1,3,8-triaza-spiro[4.5]decane-8-carbonyl}-benzenesulfonylamino)-propionic acid dipropylcarbamoylmethyl ester succinate).
This case may reflect the most recent and favorable approach of the CPO regarding patent applications reciting polymorphic forms that show unexpected effects and being properly characterized. Historically, the CPO’s standards for granting polymorphs have been subjective such that grants for these solid state forms have varied greatly.
PERU | Intellectual Property | Patent Office and Pharmaceutical Laboratories Association identified “administrative and legal barriers” for the Peruvian pharmaceutical industry
.
The Academic Observatory of the Peruvian Patent Office (Indecopi) and the Peruvian Pharmaceutical Laboratories Association (Alafarpe) have identified 10 potential administrative and legal barriers that restrict the pharmaceutical industry´s competitiveness in Peru, with the objective to propose their elimination and improve competitiveness in the market. Some of the recommendations are to eliminate delays for the grant of Test Data Protection and the removal of prohibitions related to name changes in products with marketing authorization. The other recommendations can be viewed here.
COLOMBIA | Intellectual Property | IP economic rights are now admitted as a guarantee for loans before financial institutions
.
Decree N° 466 (17 March 2016), which modified Decree 2555 of 2010, includes IP economic rights as a permitted guarantee to support loans before financial institutions.
