By Suresh Pillai --
Teva's
Discovery Request Blocked in Aricept® Suit
The U.S. District Court for the District of New
Jersey has denied a discovery request by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries to examine
communications between Eisai and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Eisai filed the original suit in 2005 following Teva's
submission of an Abbreviated New Drug Application with the FDA seeking
permission to market a generic version of Aricept®,
Eisai's Alzheimer's drug. In its
complaint, Eisai alleged that Teva's proposed generic would infringe one
of Eisai's patents covering Aricept®, U.S. Patent No. 4,895,841. Teva later stipulated that, unless the
claims were found unenforceable, Teva's proposed generic might infringe upon
some of the claims of the '841 patent. Subsequently, the District Court granted Eisai a preliminary injunction on
grounds that Teva was unlikely to prevail in its inequitable conduct
defense.
Teva's most recent discovery request was unusual in
that the communications at issue are not related to the patent at issue. Teva also sought all communications connected
to abandoned Eisai applications related to benzylpiperidine. Teva argued that these communications
would help in establishing its inequitable conduct defense in Eisai's
infringement suit over Aricept®. The District Court, however, concluded that the discovery request was
unnecessarily overbroad because it was outside the scope of the case at
bar.
Settlement
in Principle Reached in Bayer Hemophilia Drug Case
Plaintiffs Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics and
Novo Nordisk and defendants Bayer and CSL Behring have jointly asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of Texas to stay their patent infringement dispute over defendants'
marketing of hemophilia drugs, pending the outcome of settlement
negotiations. Plaintiffs
originally filed suit in February 2008 in an effort to assert their claims over
the underlying patent for two of the plaintiffs' hemophiliac drugs, Kogenate® and Hexilate®, drugs
whose active ingredient is recombinant antihemophilic Factor VIII. Plaintiffs accused defendants
of infringing U.S. Patent No. 7,138,505,
but defendants denied that their drugs infringed, and asserted that the
patent-in-suit was invalid. A
spokesperson for Bayer stated that because the parties were sufficiently close
to a settlement, a stay was sought. However, the spokesperson also stated that discussions were
continuing.
Settlement
Announced in Effexor XR® Infringement Suit
Mylan has announced an agreement with Pfizer that would allow Mylan to market a generic version of Effexor XR®, Pfizer
subsidiary Wyeth's blockbuster antidepressant drug. Wyeth originally filed suit in July 2007 following Mylan's
filing of an Abbreviated New Drug Application with the FDA seeking regulatory
approval to market a generic version of Effexor XR® (see "Court Report,"
July 15, 2007). In its amended complaint, Wyeth
alleged that Mylan's proposed generic would infringe three patents
covering Effexor XR®, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,274,171,
6,403,120,
and 6,419,958. Mylan then sought a declaratory
judgment that the patents-in-suit were not infringed or invalid.
Under the terms of the settlement, Mylan has agreed
to a nonexclusive license to certain patents that permits Mylan to market
generic versions of Effexor XR® on or after June 1, 2011, or earlier under
certain circumstances. The
agreement allows Mylan to market 37.5 mg, 75 mg, and 150 mg versions of the
drug. Other details of the
settlement agreement remain confidential.
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