The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7189 p349-354
16 March 2002

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European Court likely to rule that parallel imports can be repacked

Parallel importers expect to be told by the European Court that they are entitled to repackage centrally approved medicines to match pack sizes in destination member states.

In a dispute between a German importer and a German trade mark holder, the Advocate General (a neutral court office whose recommendations are normally accepted by the court) has said that packets of five cartridges of Insuman insulin from France can be repackaged as boxes of 10 to match the product marketed in Germany by Aventis.

Aventis had argued that this breached its trademark and that the importer should be required to bundle two packs of five together and overlabel them.

The Advocate General said that where medicines were subject to two separate central marketing authorisations for different pack sizes, each relates only to the pack size specified. This precludes the creation of larger packs by bundling smaller packs together.

The ruling applies only to medicines that have been approved by the European Medicines Evaluation Agency's centralised procedure.