Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) are intended to ensure that medicinal products requiring marketing authorisation are adequately protected.
They safeguard a sufficient return for, and thereby incentivise, pharmaceutical research involving significant preclinical and clinical work. However, SPCs do not usually extend the term of an entire patent per se, but rather extend patent protection only for a particular authorised product.
The full article has been published in the Pharma Times.
