AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) won an injunction from a New Jersey
federal court to continue barring Apotex Inc. from making a generic
version of the pharmaceutical company's children's asthma
medication Pulmicort Respules.
The latest action will make it more difficult for Apotex, which
has approval for a generic version of the drug by the U.S. Food and
Drug administration, to lift the ban.
Last month, U.K.-based AstraZeneca won a temporary ban to
protect the drug from generic competition, after filing a lawsuit
seeking a patent-infringement ruling against Apotex after the
Canadian drug maker won approval for its generic version.
AstraZeneca's patents covering Pulmicort Respules expire in 2018
and 2019. The company said Wednesday it had "full confidence in the
strength of its intellectual property rights protecting Pulmicort
Respules."
A trial date for the patent litigation hasn't been set.
Last November, AstraZeneca reached a settlement with
Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (TEVA), the first
generic drug maker to gain FDA approval to sell cheaper copies of
the asthma medicine.
Under terms of that deal, Teva agreed not to resume selling its
version of the drug until Dec. 15, 2009, under an exclusive license
from AstraZeneca for which Teva will pay a royalty on sales of the
generic. That settlement ended litigation between the two companies
in New Jersey federal court.
AstraZeneca's American depositary shares were up 0.3% to $41.23
in after-hours trading.
-By John Kell, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5285;
john.kell@dowjones.com