Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
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Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
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Re: Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
#2So would it be possible to buy the drug in Canada and ship to US?
Re: Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
#3I thought I had a decent handle on patent law, but maybe I'm missing something here.
Yes, the patent won't be valid for Canada, but you can't import a product into the US which would infringe on a US patent.
So, though there may be a small amount that would slip through the cracks, it isn't as if anyone in the US can now manufacture Semaglutide and distribute it.
Canada is such a small market, that many companies don't bother. Though, for the cost, it seems ridiculous a company as big as Novo didn't pay the $500...that may even have been in Canadian dollars. :)
Re: Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
#4> Prof. Michael Hoffman from Toronto put me on to the Canadian Patent Database, where you can find that Novo did file a patent there for semaglutide. . .but the last time they paid the annual maintenance fee on it was 2018!
> You can even find a letter where their lawyers send a refund request for the 2017 maintenance fee ($250) because Novo apparently wanted some more time to see if they wanted to pay it.
> On the same date in 2019, the office sent a letter saying that “The fee payable to maintain the rights accorded by the above patent was not received by the prescribed due date. . .”
> By that time it was $450 with the late fee added, but that was apparently too much for Novo. They had a one year grace period to make it up, and apparently never did, so their patent lapsed in Canada. And as the Canadian authorities remind them, “Once a patent has lapsed it cannot be revived”.
Impressive failure for "the second-largest semaglutide market in the world."
Re: Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
#5So would it be possible to buy the drug in Canada and ship to US?
not legally, but anything is possible
Re: Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
#6looking at the filing, they had their patent deadline extended due to COVID-19 eighteen times!
https://brevets-patents.ic.gc.ca/opic-cipo/cpd/eng/patent/26...
Re: Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
#7I thought I had a decent handle on patent law, but maybe I'm missing something here. Yes, the patent won't be valid for Canada, but you can't import a product into the US which would infringe on a US patent. So, though there may be a small amount that would slip through the cracks, it isn't as if anyone in the US can now manufacture Semaglutide and distribute it. Canada is such a small market, that many companies don…
As Derek mentions, Canada is the second largest market. There may be a lot coming into the US already, legal or not.
Re: Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
#8I thought I had a decent handle on patent law, but maybe I'm missing something here. Yes, the patent won't be valid for Canada, but you can't import a product into the US which would infringe on a US patent. So, though there may be a small amount that would slip through the cracks, it isn't as if anyone in the US can now manufacture Semaglutide and distribute it. Canada is such a small market, that many companies don…
Not that small. High income and roughly the same population as California, which isn't too small for companies to bother selling into.
Ozempic did about US$2bn of revenue in 2024 in Canada.
Re: Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
#9I thought I had a decent handle on patent law, but maybe I'm missing something here. Yes, the patent won't be valid for Canada, but you can't import a product into the US which would infringe on a US patent. So, though there may be a small amount that would slip through the cracks, it isn't as if anyone in the US can now manufacture Semaglutide and distribute it. Canada is such a small market, that many companies don…
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Re: Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
#10> Prof. Michael Hoffman from Toronto put me on to the Canadian Patent Database, where you can find that Novo did file a patent there for semaglutide. . .but the last time they paid the annual maintenance fee on it was 2018! > You can even find a letter where their lawyers send a refund request for the 2017 maintenance fee ($250) because Novo apparently wanted some more time to see if they wanted to pay it. > On the s…
To be honest, given the efficiency of the drug and the huge benefit it could be to society, I feel like if I had been the employee in charge of filing patents I would've more than ready to lose my job in exchange for low cost general availability in the US via (illegal maybe, whatever) cross-border market. It's a nice loop hole and a great thing that once the delay expired they can't file ever again.
One's got to find ways to feel like the good guy when working for Big Pharma . That's probably not what happened but it's nice imagining it.