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On 18 January, a new statutory instrument, the Human Medicines (Amendment) Regulations 2019 (the Amending Regulations), which amend the Human Medicines Regulations 2012,  was laid before Parliament.  These regulations will come into force on 9 February 2019.

The principal purpose of the amendments is to transpose into UK legislation the remaining provisions of Directive 2011/62/EU (the Falsified Medicines Directive), which require two new safety features to appear on the packaging of certain medicinal products, and the associated Commission Delegated Regulation 2016/161/EU (the Delegated Regulation), which sets out the details of these features. However, the Amending Regulations have also introduced an important new provision allowing for “serious shortage protocols” (SSPs) to be put in place for prescription-only medicines (POMs) in certain circumstances, and have extended the types of product containing naloxone (indicated for the treatment of opioid overdose) that drug treatment services may supply in an emergency.Continue Reading Amendments to UK Human Medicines Regulations 2012

On 28 November 2018, the UK Government published draft secondary legislation changing UK intellectual property law relating to exhaustion of IP rights to deal with Brexit. The aim is to ensure that the doctrine of EEA-wide exhaustion continues to apply in the UK post-Brexit, irrespective of whether there is a deal or a no-deal Brexit.

What is exhaustion?

As summarised in the explanatory memorandum, the exhaustion rule prevents the holder of an intellectual property right from using that right to stop the importation of a product into an EU country where it has been lawfully placed on the market in another country in the European Economic Area (EEA). In other words, an IP holder cannot use its IP rights to prevent parallel import (sometimes called grey imports) of goods from within the EEA. Unless the law is changed, this will not apply after Brexit, because the UK will no longer be part of the EEA. The proposed legislation seeks to change this so that exhaustion still applies to any goods brought into the UK, provided they have been placed on an EEA market with the IP owner’s consent. This will apply irrespective of whether there is a Brexit deal or not, and it is intended that this comes into effect on Brexit-day, if approved by Parliament.Continue Reading Brexhaustion: IP Rights and Exhaustion Post-Brexit