Novo Nordisk Loses Canadian Patent Protection For Blockbuster Diabetes Drug Over Unpaid $450 Fee (science.org) 57
Pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk forfeited patent protection for semaglutide -- the active ingredient in blockbuster diabetes and weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy -- in Canada after failing to pay a $450 maintenance fee in 2019. The company had paid maintenance fees through 2018 but requested a refund for the 2017 fee, apparently seeking more time to decide whether to continue protecting the patent.
When the 2019 fee came due at $450 with late penalties, Novo never paid despite having a one-year grace period. Canadian patent authorities confirmed the patent "cannot be revived" once lapsed. The oversight is particularly costly given Canada represents the world's second-largest semaglutide market, worth billions annually. Generic drugmaker Sandoz plans to launch a competing version in early 2026, while Novo's U.S. patent protection extends until at least 2032.
When the 2019 fee came due at $450 with late penalties, Novo never paid despite having a one-year grace period. Canadian patent authorities confirmed the patent "cannot be revived" once lapsed. The oversight is particularly costly given Canada represents the world's second-largest semaglutide market, worth billions annually. Generic drugmaker Sandoz plans to launch a competing version in early 2026, while Novo's U.S. patent protection extends until at least 2032.
Just buy the patent (Score:2)
They make a few billion a year from this, right? Given how much it can save a healthcare system to massively reduce weight related problems in the population, it would make sense for government to just buy out the patent so that much cheaper generic versions can be available to the citizens.
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No I don't, sorry.
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That's unfortunate.
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Why? Is thee a reason or is it just 'cause you say so?
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A patent is property manufactured by the government that ceases to exist if the government ceases to exist. It's not clear why a government would buy a patent, they may as well just pay a corporation for nothing. Better off funding research, which until now the government does, then NOT granting such patents (or granting patents but making research funding contingent on pricing control). Buying a patent by the government is merely invalidating that patent, something a government can do for free, theoreti
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The government buys the patent and then either contracts to have it manufactured, or just releases it for free so anyone can make it and hopes that the free market drives the price down.
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I do understand the concept, I'm saying that it's a Rube Goldberg approach to the issue. The patent is granted by the government in the first place, they don't need to give it away and then buy it back.
And why would a company accept a contract to manufacture a drug when it is far more profitable to apply for patents and then sell them back to the government?
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The government doesn't own the patent. All the government is saying is a particular idea/concept/formulation/whatever is unique and was created by (fill in the blank). They are not paying the person/company anything for the patent. The person/company pays them.
They can't give away a patent because it's not theirs to give away.
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They can't give away a patent because it's not theirs to give away.
Not entirely for free, but most governments reserve the right to use patented technology without a licensing agreement, usually limited to cases where it's in the interest of the country and subject to some sort of "fair compensation" to the patent holder.
Takings clause (Score:2)
Buying a patent by the government is merely invalidating that patent, something a government can do for free, theoretically.
That depends on the country's takings law. I'm more familiar with the United States Constitution, which provides: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Canada's Expropriation Act (fact sheet [publications.gc.ca]) likewise guarantees market value to the property owner.
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Will ICE start searching people crossing into the US from Canada for generic semaglutide?
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For private use with a prescription, I don't see why it should be illegal.
Because the US patents make it illegal to import without permission from the patent holder. I don't think there are any personal use exceptions for patents.
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So every international traveler could be searched to see if their meds contain any patent violations and seized at the border?
This is entirely unworkable.
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So every international traveler could be searched to see if their meds contain any patent violations and seized at the border?
This is entirely unworkable.
Another convenient reason to search everyone though. Just add it to the long list.
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So every international traveler could be searched to see if their meds contain any patent violations and seized at the border?
This is entirely unworkable.
If the medication is intended for personal use the patents are typically not an issue. Crossing the border with the medication itself still is though.
It is already the case that you have to follow regulations if you want to bring personal medication across borders. As example, you are very likely required to declare prescription medication and depending on the border and the medication even some over-the-counter medication.
As stated above, the US can allow foreigners temporally traveling to the US to bring
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Better tell US customs then. They've always checked drugs carried by people entering the US.
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and then the jail / prison ends paying for full price for there drugs while they wait for there day in court?
Re:Just buy the patent (Score:5, Informative)
If the government bought out the patent sure, they could then license it for a fee, but what would be the point if the aim is to make the drug available cheaply to Canadians and, I guess, USians that cross the border to fill their prescriptions rather than pay US prices that are still under patent cover? That would just add license costs on top of manufacturing and distribution costs and drive the overall prices up, unless you mean by adding a price cap as part of the license terms? The logical thing to do would be to let the market set the prices and if that's at a realistic level, then great, but if not - because Martin Shkreli isn't the only greedy fsck without a conscience in pharma - then Plan B would be to contract someone to manufacture them at a given price for the use of the Canadian health service.
Re:Just buy the patent (Score:4, Informative)
He's referring to other countries like the US where the patent is still valid and will be for some years yet. Obviously in Canada, the patent no longer exists so there's nothing to buy or sell.
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Why would it be cheaper for the government to buy than the expected profit?
It'd be practically zero sum (technically it may get more use of the government purchases for expected profit under the current system, but it'd be a very very expensive purchase, and one that would benefit a subset of the population).
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Are any of the profits going to Gila Monster conservation?
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Why would it be cheaper for the government to buy than the expected profit?
It might be worth it when a government factors in: a) the costs of treating obesity-related illnesses in public healthcare networks for countries with universal healthcare, which are most of them, and b) the reduced productivity caused by obesity, which leads to a non-insignificant reduction on GDP and in taxes collected, versus c) the cost of the buying the patent outright, plus d) the cost of manufacturing it in great enough quantity to, again in universal healthcare countries, distribute it for free to t
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Oops! I inverter the sign. It's a+b >> c+d, not the other way around.
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Why? Pharma companies can do math. If they were willing to sell the patent they would charge as much as they thought it was worth. Aside from a nice gift to the generic drugmakers, the result would just be the public taking on the risk of owning the patent.
You could decide the drug was critical and dictate the price. Besides being a bad precedent for the world's largest IP hol
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Cash lump sum, government can borrow it cheaper than anyone. Why do all the work for years, when they can take cash now and invest it? Throw in some tax writes offs maybe.
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I dunno, but given generics will be available in CA and not US, that's going to be the real Canadian border "drug running" problem right there.
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lmao even
Don’t do that! The patent on ass attachment isn’t lapsed and you pay out the thing you don’t have anymore!
Hahaha (Score:2)
This reminds me of when the Air Force had a $35 billion dollar KC-X Tanker replacement contract up for grabs but US Aerospace-Antonov delivered their bid 5 minutes late because the delivery guy couldn't find the office. (They later sued the Air Force (and lost) saying the courier received bum directions from someone at the gate.)
Penny-wise (Score:3)
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The mailbox might be flowing over with spam.
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I imagine an overflowing mail inbox that is not getting processed because the team now works from home 100%...
They let it lapse in 2019, before COVID sent folks working from home.
This sounds more like a bureaucratic screw-up, unless at that time they didn't know the true market/application and legit thought the drug was so useless that it wasn't worth $450. That sounds bizarre, but among many drugs and countries those fees probably add up, maybe they do just let a bunch of the worthless ones expire.
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It's very unlikely that any pharma company is holding on to worthless patents. If nothing else, getting a patent granted takes both time and money, and there's no point in patenting something unless you have a use for it. And, when you apply for a patent, you have to make one or more claims, each one of them describing a use for whatever you're patenting that you want protected. No use, no claims, no patent.
Sure, but they requested a refund of the 2017 fee. I doubt this was some middle manager going completely insane. There had to be some kind of official process at work, even if that process went haywire.
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I was the OP!
I can certainly imagine a company getting a patent for a drug then later on realizing the drug was worthless as it didn't work, wasn't marketable, or there were simply much better options on the market
Canada isn't much, but across the world the fees could add up to tens, maybe hundreds of thousands per yer per drug? Maybe if the drug really is a bust you just let it expire.
It still seems bizarre considering that it must cost many millions to develop a drug to the point of being able to patent s
Re:Penny-wise (Score:4, Insightful)
Corporations have a staff that manages their IP, one of their jobs is reviewing their portfolio to make sure it meets corporate goals. A patent they do not see as of value will not have ongoing fees paid, simple as that. It's not about how much money was saved, it's about a failure to identify the value of the particular patent entirely.
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They probably got mixed up because they were trying to game the first year?
It seems like they couldn't decide on 2017, which I assume would impact their final year of protection.
In the process they got mixed up and failed to keep things going in 2019.
So it wasn't about the $450, it was about the $x they'd get with that extra year of protection.
They probably gutted middle management, as this is exactly the type of thing a good middle manager will hassle people about until it gets handled.
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I have a hard time imagining a corporate bureaucracy involving lawyers to be efficient enough to make it worth not simply paying a $250 fee over having any internal conversation about it.
Let me give you a real life, IT explanation of something probably similar that happened to a company I worked for. A severance agreement still in force prevents me from talking badly about them on social media. So I will simply say that I worked for a US based Fortune 500 company I will call John Doe Inc.
I became a JDI employee because I was working for a successful startup that JDI bought. At that startup, one of my responsibilities was to manage domain name registration for domains we owned and
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Also, I recall working for a similarly sized company that almost ended up in court over tonnage fees (basically taxes on feed ingredients) in half a dozen different US states. There had been a couple of reorganizations and responsibilities for receiving the invoices and paying the fees bounced around to a couple of different people. The person they ended with saw dealing with those products as "not my job" becuase her job tit
Investors (Score:2)
Oh that's going to be expensive (Score:1)
hahahaahahahahhahaha
Lapsed 5 years ago?? (Score:2)
so why is this making news only now?
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Benefit I'd say (Score:5, Insightful)
A reason to get a passport (Score:1)
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only corporate will risk billions to save $450 (Score:2)
only corporate geniuses will risk billions to save $450.... the talks spent about this likely cost 40x in payroll time...
so... they actually wasted the time to try and get a refund on the previous renewal citing "review if they even want to maintain the patent"... only to forget to pay it and lose billions in future profits.
love it when companies try to penny pinch and do this kind of crap... especially on the tech side... save a few hundred... pay the thousands... while also spending days in discussions, i