KYIV. March 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Violation of honest and transparent competition rules, in particular intellectual property rights, by Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturers results in disengagement of investors and representatives of the European business, Deputy Director of Scientific and Research Institute of Intellectual Property under the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, PhD in Law, forensic expert Oleksandr Doroshenko has said.

He gave his opinion at a press release entitled "Corvalol: 60 years on the market. How to protect a brand and not become a precedent for unfair competitors' profit" at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.

The expert said that this concern registration of medicines, which names include the name of a well-known medicine made by other manufacturers. Doroshenko said that there is practice in the world, according to which it is possible to use the existing name of a medicine with the name of the manufacturer, but this concerns only international generic names.

"There is a practice in the world when adding to the name of a medicine the name of a manufacturing company is a designation that can be registered as a trademark. However, this is only about those medicines whose names are international generic names. In this case, at the time of registration of the medicine Corvalol-Darnitsa the Corvalol trademark has been defended for 10 years as belonging to private JSC Farmak. Unfortunately, this is not the only example in Ukraine where pharmaceutical manufacturers are trying to use someone else's reputation and other people's efforts in bringing the medicine to the market, as this does not need to spend extra money. If we do not respect the fair rules and, in particular, issues related to intellectual property, then what investments it can be talking about," he said.

In turn, Head of PJSC Farmak's Legal Department Dmytro Taranchuk, said that the company had repeatedly defended the intellectual property rights to Corvalol.

"Farmak consistently defends its intellectual property rights, especially for such well-known brands as Corvalol. As an example, we can cite an absolutely fresh legal proceeding initiated by Farmak regarding the state registration of the medicinal product called Corvalol-Zdorovye. This medicine was registered in 2017 by the Zdorovye pharmaceutical company and is in fact analog. As a result, the Kyiv Economic Court of Appeals overturned the registration of the medicine and obliged this company not to use this name in its activities," he said.