[jzebedee]

> Prof. Michael Hoffman from Toronto put me on to the Canadian Patent Database, where you can find that Novo did file a patent there for semaglutide. . .but the last time they paid the annual maintenance fee on it was 2018!

> You can even find a letter where their lawyers send a refund request for the 2017 maintenance fee ($250) because Novo apparently wanted some more time to see if they wanted to pay it.

> On the same date in 2019, the office sent a letter saying that “The fee payable to maintain the rights accorded by the above patent was not received by the prescribed due date. . .”

> By that time it was $450 with the late fee added, but that was apparently too much for Novo. They had a one year grace period to make it up, and apparently never did, so their patent lapsed in Canada. And as the Canadian authorities remind them, “Once a patent has lapsed it cannot be revived”.

Impressive failure for "the second-largest semaglutide market in the world."

[0cf8612b2e1e]

I always wonder-in this case of such an epic company fuck up, does anyone ever get fired? Or is responsibility so diffuse that nobody is ultimately responsible?

Pharma companies are really nothing more than holders of time-limited, expensive, exclusive IP. The number one priority should be to maintain those protections as long as possible. How could any patent be allowed to lapse, even if there was limited commercial value, let alone, a blockbuster drug making billions?

[bawolff]

Typically when people get fired for something like this they are just the scapegoat.

A failure like this isn't just one dude forgetting, its a system failure where policies and checks failed. If it is solely up to one person that is a failure in and of itself.

[nijuashi]

Saying pharma companies are just holders of ‘expensive, time-limited IP’ is not only wrong, it’s offensive to those of us who actually do the science. We spend years designing, testing, and validating drugs, not scheming to hike prices. We’re not all Shkrelis out here.

[foofoo12]

> Or is responsibility so diffuse that nobody is ultimately responsible

It doesn't take a very large company for this to happen. I've seen it in a sub 50 person company. There is a task to be done but no one can do it because everyone involved is waiting for someone else to do something. It's like a Mexican standoff.

[userbinator]

Or is responsibility so diffuse that nobody is ultimately responsible?

That's exactly how things like this happen. No one has responsibility, thinking it's someone else's problem, so no one bothers to do the needful.

[ionwake]

after working in many companies for decades I can guarantee that the person responsible is some middle manager, who will just blame one of her/his workers who had that piece of work "deprioritised" to instead focus on the styling of a spreadsheet. The paper trail will point to the manager, who will just claim it was allocated to a problem character.

The cartharsis comes in knowing that them firing the innocent just keeps them repeating the mistake.

[chvid]

They are getting fired now - as Novo is in major crisis mode and going through its largest layoffs ever.

[m463]

to me, I am reminded of countless DNS renewal mistakes that are publicized.

[hibikir]

In your typical large company, there's always enough nebulous process as to minimize personal accountability for any decision that is made. There might be a decision maker in practice, but there will be enough wide meetings and committees so that the groups as a whole can make bad decision, or a very immoral decisions, with minimal risk of consequences for anyone involved. Raising tough questions in those rooms is a good way to not make friends, and end up isolated in an unimportant position after the next semi-anual reorg.

Even in companies with a strong CEO who is, in fact, lording over everyone, mechanisms will be built to make sure said CEO's bad decisions were group decisions, and that most of the people around him agreed.

[Rebelgecko]

Is this the patent equivalent of letting your website's cert expire?

[Eupolemos]

Uh, Novo is having an absolutely massive firing round; the CEO got axed first and Denmark now has a glut of qualified unemployed which we're all doing our best to hire ASAP :D (we just had the lowest unemployment rate in our history)

(Novo hired _way_ too many people because 'infinite money')

[benrawk]

I mean the CEO got fired…

[gpt5]

Canadian manufacturers (Sandoz and Apotex) are preparing to launch their own generic versions in early 2026.

I bet many Americans would travel to Canada to buy it there (despite the legality concerns). The medications lasts 2 years in a refrigerator.

[rootusrootus]

If you're going to go for a two year supply, it's probably better to just risk shipping it. You're not going to come home with that much without it getting confiscated, and you're way more likely to be searched individually than a typical package is.

[reaperducer]

I bet many Americans would travel to Canada to buy it there

Why travel? There are thousands of ads on TV, radio, and the internet each day for Canadian pharmacies that promise to ship whatever you need to the U.S.

[loeg]

I think the biggest legality concern is having your shipment seized at the border. Maybe a risk but it’s not exactly a scheduled drug.

[stevehawk]

the shelf life is probably longer than that if you buy it in dehydrated form and don't hydrate it (but i have no idea)

[AnimalMuppet]

Um, what are the legality concerns? Is it illegal to bring medicine for your own use over the border? If not that, then what?

(Honest question. I don't know.)

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I totally believe this happened.

If anyone has worked in a big, hidebound corporation, they are familiar with the "That's not my job" quandary.

[general1465]

This is impressive feat of bean counting. To save few thousand dollars, they lost market of few billion dollars. Good job.

[decimalenough]

Remember that back in the dim antiquity of 2017, semaglutide was an experimental drug for type 2 diabetes. The sales explosion only happened a few years later when it started being prescribed for weight loss.

[foxglacier]

Don't be so quick to assume it was a failure not intentional. One of the comments in the article suggests it could have been to avoid PMPRB which is price control for patented drugs.

[PerryUlysses]

The company said it was intentional, probably because of the reason you mentioned: “In a statement to Fortune, Novo Nordisk said there was no mistake regarding its patent maintenance fee in Canada.”

[Scoundreller]

I still don’t get that though: is that worth losing exclusivity over?

I guess they think some other production patent will let them maintain exclusivity without it being a patent on the drug itself?

[duxup]

That letter from lawyers probably cost more than 250 …

[abirch]

The sad thing is they probably were billed 500 dollars for the lawyers to “read” it.

[eulgro]

To be honest, given the efficiency of the drug and the huge benefit it could be to society, I feel like if I had been the employee in charge of filing patents I would've more than ready to lose my job in exchange for low cost general availability in the US via (illegal maybe, whatever) cross-border market. It's a nice loop hole and a great thing that once the delay expired they can't file ever again.

One's got to find ways to feel like the good guy when working for Big Pharma . That's probably not what happened but it's nice imagining it.

[Vinnl]

Maybe they'd even do it in exchange for just low-cost general availability in Canada!