Lawsuit against Pharmasel: Court bans management of Nikopharm brand and demands destruction of 29 drugs, including anesthetics

A lawsuit is being reviewed in the Commercial Court of Kyiv that could affect a wide range of medicines produced by the Ukrainian manufacturer Pharmasel. According to case materials reported by RBC-Ukraine with reference to court documents and an investigation by the StopCor publication, the plaintiff demands the withdrawal from circulation and destruction of 29 drug items, including anesthetics, hemostatics, and resuscitation solutions. The defendant is challenging the court ruling prohibiting the management of the Nikopharm trademark and is preparing an appeal.

What the plaintiff demands

The lawsuit was filed on October 9, 2026, by NIKO LLC (director — Serhiy Dyadechko) represented by arbitration manager Diana Kozlovska. The case is registered under numbers 910/3053/26 (910/12930/26). Paragraph 22 of the petition contains a demand to oblige Pharmasel to withdraw from civil circulation and destroy 29 items of medicines. Among them are Hemaxam, Bupivacaine, Bupivacaine Spinal, Emeton, novocaine, sodium chloride, water for injection, magnesium sulfate, Diclofenac, Eufillin, as well as antibiotics Levocin-N and Avecin-N. These are drugs used in operating rooms, intensive care units, and traumatology; a number of active substances are included in the National List of Essential Medicines. The claim value is about UAH 106.7 million.

Case progress and interim measures

On October 13, 2026, the court chaired by Judge Leonid Omelchenko initiated proceedings and prohibited Pharmasel from disposing of the trademark. The defendant, according to its statement, is preparing an appeal. The plaintiff justifies the demands, in particular, by Articles 15–16 of the Civil Code and Article 41 of the TRIPS Agreement. At the same time, as follows from the case materials, the evidence of the sign's use includes a list of links to pharmacy websites and directories without printouts or confirmations that trademark No. 113454 was actually applied to the drug packaging. Article 432 of the Civil Code allows the destruction of goods put into circulation in violation of intellectual property rights, but this requires proving the violation itself, the connection of the brand with each product item, and the proportionality of such an irreversible measure.

History of rights to the Nikopharm brand

The conflict concerns the Nikopharm trademark (certificate No. 113454). Following the loss of the plant in occupied Makiivka in 2014, rights to the sign were transferred through a 2015 transaction, and in 2024 they were acquired by Pharmasel. The manufacturer insists on the legality of this chain of rights transfer. The plaintiff, on the contrary, challenges the transactions and demands returning the brand to the debtor's estate and destroying the medicines associated with it.

Disputed valuation of the brand

The expert valuation of the brand raises separate questions. Iryna Mishchenko's conclusion No. 788/09.2026 dated September 4, 2026, determines its value as of July 2015 at UAH 94.27 million — almost $4.2 million. According to StopCor's estimate, the calculation is actually based on summing up conditional royalties from past revenues rather than on profit forecasts after the loss of the plant; journalists also point to arithmetic contradictions in the conclusion. In addition, since January 18, 2025, Law No. 3910-IX prohibits placing information on drug packaging about persons who are not the manufacturer or the marketing authorization holder, so the right to the corporate brand alone does not guarantee the possibility of using it on drug packaging.

Pharmasel's status and supplies

Pharmasel has the status of a critically important enterprise (Ministry of Health order No. 1804 dated November 26, 2025) and 211 employees; for 2025, the company paid UAH 28.5 million in taxes. According to Prozorro, the manufacturer has fulfilled 847 contracts with healthcare institutions worth over UAH 175 million, and the consolidated list of buyers, taking into account purchases through distributors, numbers 1,644 items, including 63 military units, 59 military and departmental medical institutions, 28 MIA institutions, and two SBU institutions. The register of charitable assistance for 2022–2026 contains 313 recipients, including the Main Military Clinical Hospital, Okhmatdyt, Mechnikov Hospital, and Shalimov Institute of Surgery. "As soon as the hostilities started, the director's first call was to me: call Kyiv hospitals and offer free assistance," recalls Vitaliy Novikov, head of hospital promotion at Pharmasel.