Intellectual Property Rights

Course : Pharmacy


When questions on the intellectual property rights (IPRs) of pharmacy, answers that often appear on mind basically related to the registration of medicines and market entry, advertisement of medicines, issue of appropriate license, import of medicines from other countries, regulation of biomedical and clinical research and so on.

However, what actually is meant by (IPRs)? IPRs are like any other property rights. They allow the creator or owner of a patent, trademark or copyright to benefit from his or her own work or investment.

As an example, IPRs of pharmacy prevent companies from manufacturing drugs that have been developed by other companies. For this, research pharmacists play a pivotal role in the discovery and development of new drug molecules and processes used in manufacturing them.

The company which get to create new drugs can get copyright for the drugs for 10 years as a benefit of efforts. Within this 10years time, other companies are not allowed to manufacture the same drugs. The rewards provided by the patent system will have incentive for researchers and inventors to continue producing efficient products for consumer worldwide.

Nowadays, IPRs have become synonymous with the debate on generic drug production and trade. The issue of pharmacy robberies and burglaries has become great challenge posed by generic drugs.

For instance, the appearance of counterfeit drugs not only brings negative impact to the pharmacy industry, but most important public health. The counterfeit products have entered the health care system not only via the black market and rouge internet, but through legitimate supply chains as well.

These consequences have highlighted the importance of IPRs of pharmacy. To protect against this, IPRs of pharmacy plays an important role in combating counterfeited and pirated prescription drugs.