Ranbaxy Laboratories sued AstraZeneca Plc in the UK over claims that its European patents for the best-selling ulcer treatment Nexium are invalid, two years after settling a related US case.
India’s biggest drugmaker also seeked a court order that it wouldn’t infringe the patents, if it started selling generic Nexium in Britain, AstraZeneca said in an October 29 regulatory filing. Justice George Mann in the High Court in London today agreed that documents outlining the claims and AstraZeneca’s defense in the case should be kept a secret.
“AstraZeneca has full confidence in, and will vigorously defend and enforce, its intellectual property protecting Nexium,” Laura Woodin, an AstraZeneca spokeswoman, said in an email today. The lawsuit over two patents, which expire in 2014 and 2018, respectively, was filed on September 30.
Generics makers are vying for a share of the market after AstraZeneca had Nexium sales of $912 million in western Europe, out of a worldwide total of $3.74 billion, in the first nine months of this year. Following earlier settlements, AstraZeneca in March sued India’s Sun Pharmaceutical Industries to prevent it from selling generic Nexium in the US before 2014.
The earlier US case against Gurgaon, India-based Ranbaxy was settled in April 2008 in a deal that gave it the right to sell generic Nexium in the US under license from London-based AstraZeneca beginning in 2014. AstraZeneca sued in 2005 in federal court in New Jersey, after Ranbaxy sought US regulatory approval for generic drug.
Six US patents
Under the US deal, Ranbaxy agreed AstraZeneca’s six US patents on the product were “valid and enforceable,” the UK’s second-biggest drugmaker said at the time. Ranbaxy also accepted that its generic medicine would infringe four of those patents if it were sold without a license.
More From This Section
AstraZeneca reached a similar deal with Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries in January when it settled another US lawsuit over generic Nexium. US sales of the drug last year were $2.84 billion.
Krishnan Ramalingam, a Ranbaxy spokesman, had no immediate comment when reached today.