Aequo secured an extremely important victory in the Superior Commercial Court of Ukraine for Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Limited in a first of a kind case involving biosimilar medicinal product registered in Ukraine. At this stage the Superior Commercial Court of Ukraine considered the issue of preliminary injunction granted against Aequo's client.
The case was brought to the court by the U.S. based company claiming patent infringement. The courts of lower instances applied to the biosimilar product the same approach as they did to generics previously. As a result, the Commercial Court of the city of Kyiv granted the preliminary injunction against the biosimilar product of our client. The ruling of the first instance court was confirmed by the appellate court. In its cassation appeal Dr. Reddy’s substantiated that a completely new approach should be applied to hi-technology biosimilar products distinguishing them from generics while considering a patent infringement matter.
On January 26, 2016 the Superior Commercial Court of Ukraine satisfied Dr. Reddy’s cassation appeal and cancelled the preliminary injunction in full. From the resolution of the Superior Commercial Court of Ukraine it proceeds that a new approach (different from the one previously applied to generics) should be applied to biosimilar product having its specificity of the production process.
In these proceedings Aequo team combined its experience in patent litigation with strong expertise in biology and chemistry. Partner Oleksandr Mamunya, attorneys-at-law Nataliya Dryuk and Anton Kapitonenko, and patent attorney Nataliia Kushnir worked on the case.