Novartis holds the most number of drug patents in Korea

Holds 153 patents affecting 79 drugs, and Janssen, Hanmi and MSD follow

50 global companies own 64% of patented drugs, when seven Korean companies are in top 20

Sources confirm a pharmaceutical company with the highest number of pharmaceutical patent in Korea is Novartis Korea.

 

The company owns the rights of 153 patents related to total of 29 drug items.

 

While multinational drug companies are mostly dominating the top ten list of patent holders, Hanmi Pharmaceutical with incrementally modified drug (IMD) patents is the only Korean company in the list.

 

On Jan.

 

17, Daily Pharm analyzed Ministry of Food and Drug Safety’s (MFDS) statistics on patents and found there are overall 1,881 drug patents in effect as of January 2020.

 

The patents affect 1,093 drug items.

 

Top 30 drug patent-holding companies in Korea

Currently, 116 companies own at least one or more patents.

 

Novartis Korea own the most with 153 patents related to 79 items.

 

The company’s major line-up consists of Galvus, Galvus Met, Tasigna, Cosentyx, Jakavi, Glivec, Entresto, Afinitor, Stalevo, Exjade, Xolair and more.

 

And recently, patents on Galvus and Galvus Met had been challenged fiercely by Korean pharmaceutical companies.

 

Centering Hanmi Pharmaceutical and Ahn-gook Pharmaceutical, the Norvatis’ patent has been challenged by Korean companies’ defensive confirmation trial for the scope of patent right.

 

The industry expects to see the original’s generics launched by August 2021 at earliest.

 

Janssen Korea takes the second place, but has a significant gap with Novartis.

 

Janssen holds 83 patents for 47 items, including Darzalex, Stelara, Prezista and more.

 

Hanmi Pharmaceutical follows next on the list with 66 patents registered for 43 items.

 

Most of them are IMDs like Amodipin, Amosartan, and Hanmi Flu.

 

The rest of the list includes MSD Korea, GSK Korea, Takeda Pharmaceuticals Korea, Pfizer Pharmaceutical Korea, Korea Boehringer Ingelheim Korea, AstraZeneca Korea, and Bayer Korea.

 

Hanmi Pharmaceutical is the only Korean company in the top-ten list.

 

Expanding out the list down to top 20, there are total seven Korean pharmaceutical companies.

 

LG Chem (27 patents), Chong Kun Dang Pharmaceutical (27 patents), Dong-A ST (24 patents), JW Pharmaceutical (22 patents), Daewoong Pharmaceutical (20 patents), and SK Chemicals (19 patents) have their places in the top 20 list.

 

Interestingly, the top sales revenue list and the top patent-holders list do not match.

 

As of 2018, Yuhan is the top selling Korean pharmaceutical company, but the company sits on the 13th place on the top Korean patent-holding companies’ list.

 

The second top selling company GC Pharma is on the 21st place on the patent-holder’s list.

 

Whereas the top selling global pharmaceutical company Pfizer is actually on the sixth place on the top patent holder’s list.

 

Janssen is within the top ten selling pharmaceutical companies’ list, but it is on the second place for the patent holder’s list.

 

Top 20 patent-holding multinational companies

50 multinational pharmaceutical companies’ patents affect 63.6 percent of drugs in the Korean market.

 

The global companies hold 72.8 percent of all drug patents in Korea, which means each global company owns average of 13.9 patented drugs.

 

Among 66 Korean companies, each one holds average of six patented drugs.

 

However, most of the Korean companies (46 companies) own less than five patented items.

 

21 companies have only one item patented.

 

Patent-holding ratio of multinational and Korean pharmaceutical companies in Korea

As far as patented substance goes, metformin hydrochloride had the most number of related patented drugs with 47 items.

 

Following the list, rosuvastatin calcium (29 drugs), amlodipine besylate (25 drugs), hydrochlorothiazide (20 drugs), losartan potassium (16 drugs), telmisartan (16 drugs), amlodipine camsylate (15 drugs), and pregabalin (15 drugs) have the most number of related patented drugs.

 

Mostly, the patented drugs treat chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes.