UrBC, Moscow, February 14, 2018. Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service proposed a bill to the Russian Government requiring that all companies in the pharmaceutical sector get licensed for the sake of national security, the FAS’s press service reports.

‘The FAS has placed a proposal with the Cabinet stating that the Russian Government should take charge of granting permissions to use inventions, usable models, or industrial samples without the patent owner’s specific consent (but with notifying the patent owner as soon as possible and paying them a compensation) in order to protect the citizens’ life and health,’ says Head of the FAS Social Sector & Trade Control Department Timofey Nizhegorodtsev.

The right to grant such permissions is believed to work as the solution to the problem of patent owners abusing their dominant market position (i.e. setting and maintaining unjustifiably high prices or refusing to produce/supply to the Russian Federation a particular medicine or medical equipment) in cases when this threatens the population’s life and health.