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NDA sued over Covidex drug
What you need to know:
- Background. The filing of the law suit comes barely four days after a concerned lawyer, Mr George William Alenyo and Christian Chamber of Commerce, Agriculture, Industry, Trade and Tourism, last week, sued Prof Ogwang and 12 other government institutions over patent rights.
- Core to the petitioners’ concern is that Prof Ogwang, a civil servant, developed the herbal medicinal drug using government funds at Mbarara University, alongside his colleagues and yet he is claiming its patent rights as an individual.
A group of lawyers have sued the National Drug Authority (NDA) for giving the green light to Jena Herbals Uganda Ltd, a company owned by Associate Prof Patrick Ogwang, to manufacture, sell and distribute Covidex drug.
The plantiffs, Advocates for People (AFP), and Mr Musa Muhammed Kigongo, the director and secretary general of AFP, petitioned the High Court in Kampala yesterday and are, among others, seeking remedies to quash the said NDA decision.
The petitioners are seeking a court order quashing the decision of the 1st respondent (NDA) granting the 2nd respondent (Jena Herbals Ltd) permission to produce, sell and distribute Covidex drug, communicated to the public in a press release of June 29 .
“The decision and procedure followed by the 1st respondent to approve Covidex as a supportive drug in the management of viral infections, including Covid-19, among others, and authorising the 2nd respondent to produce, sell and distribute the said drug whereas it is not the rightful owner or holder of the patent, is not only illegal, procedurally improper but also prejudicial to public interests and tax payers,” the petitioners contend in their documents before court.
In their law suit, the petitioners argue that on June 14, the Vice Chancellor of Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), Prof Celestino Obua, clearly stated in a press statement that the university is the intellectual property holder of Covidex.
They add that Prof Obua in his statement warned Jena Herbals Ltd to stop production, sale and distribution of Covidex on grounds that it is not the rightful owner as research and development of the said drug was the work of the university through its arm called Pharm-Biotechnology and Traditional Medicine Centre.
The petitioners further argue that NDA on its website on June 14, released a statement, notifying the public that it had not authorised the production, sell and distribution of Covidex.
“A few days later, on June 29, on NBS TV, I was shocked to see Mr David Nahamya, the executive director of the 1st respondent at the Uganda Media Centre in Kampala releasing a press statement…..notifying the public that the 1st respondent had approved Covidex as a supportive drug in the management of viral infections and that it had authorised the 2nd respondent to produce, sell and distribute Covidex, which company is not the rightful owner of the patent of the drug,” the petition further reads.
Mr Kigongo contends that as a former MP, he is aware that in 2014, Parliament enacted the Industrial and Property Act, that demands that once an employee in the course of his/her duties innovates anything, the patent belongs to the employer.
He adds that Prof Patrick Ogwang, who is trading as Jena Herbals Ltd, is an employee of MUST and that he was recently promoted to the rank of associate professor in the pharmacy department and there is no other contract stating otherwise.
“...where an invention is made by an employee in execution or not in execution of an employment contract and where for making that invention, the employee used materials and data know-how of the employer, the right to the patent belongs to the employer, which is Mbarara University, a government institute in this case,”Mr Kigongo claims.
He explains that the intention of the legislation was to avoid the tradition where scientific inventions in public universities funded by taxpayers, were left open to unscrupulous people to descend upon university laboratories in search of free knowledge, which could be patented for their own financial gains.
The petitioners caution that unless court intervenes, Mbarara University and the taxpayer are going to lose as private citizens gain from patent, a move they say will result into citizens being charged highly for the said Covidex drug.
