The Eurasian Patent Organization (EAPO) unites eight countries with a combined population exceeding 210 million people: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. In 2021, the EAPO launched the Eurasian Pharma Registry, a dedicated tool linking international non-proprietary names (INNs) to relevant patents, both Eurasian and national. The registry was designed to strengthen pharma patent protection across the EAPO Member States' territories.

The registry is available online here, and it provides open, transparent, and free-of-charge access to reliable and regularly updated information. It includes patents protecting:

• pharmacologically active substances (chemical compounds, biotech products);
• compositions and combinations containing pharmacologically active substances;
• methods of obtaining pharmacologically active substances; and
• medical uses of pharmacologically active substances.

For each entry, the registry provides information on the relevant INN, the corresponding patent(s) and their current legal status and licenses, as well as data on registered products.

As of today, the registry contains more than 340 INNs, owned by over 140 patentees from more than 20 countries. The majority of recorded patents are owned by the patentees from the United States, Switzerland, and Germany.

In recent years, the registry has started to play an important role in the context of public procurement and patent enforcement. Procurement authorities increasingly rely on the registry when assessing bids and selecting products for supply. When an INN is listed in the registry, procurement organizers verify whether the marketing authorization submitted in the tender corresponds to the information contained in the registry. As a result, the registry entries may directly influence procurement outcomes.

Information from the registry is increasingly used as supplementary evidence of the scope of patent protection in patent disputes, which enhances legal certainty and supports patentees in enforcement proceedings. The recording process is straightforward and both time- and cost-efficient and as a result, listing patents on the registry helps pharmaceuticals companies' business and legal functions to excel in public procurement and patent enforcement.