This workshop was designed to give representatives of leading foreign pharmaceutical companies and legal experts with experience in the field of medicine and pharmaceuticals, intellectual property and antitrust legislation the opportunity to discuss the latest trends, legislative initiatives and relevant regulatory issues that have a major influence on the development of the pharmaceutical industry.

Seminar’s speaker panel included Borys Danevych, Managing Partner at Danevych law firm, VKP’s Senior Associate Sergey Denisenko, VKP’s Partners Oleksandr Mamunya and Mariya Nizhnik, as well as Maksym Sysoiev, Counsel at Danevych law firm.

Thus, among the major trends in the field of intellectual property rights in the pharmaceutical industry, Oleksandr Mamunya named the disappearance of a clear distinction between innovative and generic pharmaceutical companies, a shift in emphasis and changing principles of patenting, government initiatives to introduce a system of compulsory licensing; he also highlighted the recent legislative initiatives in this regard.

During session devoted to reviewing the trends and prospects for the regulation of prices on medicines, Borys Danevych identified such factors as political conditionality, promoting of the interests of local manufacturers, attempts of introduction of more reasonable pricing approaches in the segment of public funding, expansion of the spheres and the mechanisms of price regulation. The focus of the discussion was centered on the practice of price controlling authorities, as well as on the important judicial decisions in this area. Seminar attendees also dwelt upon the current changes in legislation on pricing regulation.

Mariya Nizhnik, Antitrust & Competition Partner with Vasil Kisil & Partners covered antitrust regulation trends and shared recipes for building relationships with distributors, while pointing out the side effects of violating the antitrust laws.

The participants noted that the format of the event contributed to a lively discussion and yielded satisfactory answers to the most important issues of the pharmaceutical industry.