AstraZeneca loses battle
March 6, 2013
YESTERDAY AstraZeneca lost its
battle to block generic versions of
Crestor (rosuvastatin) in the Federal
Court of Australia, after Judge Jagot
found several of the company’s
patents to be invalid, and revoked
them.
The ruling effectively overturned
a judgment in May 2012 which up
held the company’s intellectual
property claims over the drug
(which were all due to run until at
least 2020).
This decision was challenged by
generic drugmakers Apotex,
Watson Pharma and Ascent Pharma
in the Federal Court case, with each
of the companies aiming to bring a
generic rosuvastatin to market.
Crestor is a lucrative drug for
AstraZeneca, with the medicine
bringing in around $350 million
from Australia last year alone.
According to analysts, Australian
sales of Crestor represent around
6% of the total turnover for
AstraZeneca, leaving it open to
significant losses should generic
versions of the drug enter the
landscape.
AstraZeneca has said that it is
currently considering its legal
options in Australia, and that it may
launch further action, labelling
yesterday’s decision as
“disappointing”.
The Federal Court finding comes
at a bad time for the company,
after it announced in January a 17%
drop in annual sales, mainly due to
due patent protection losses for
Seroquel and Nexium.
Interestingly though, the ruling
follows in the wake of a win for
AstraZeneca in the US courts in
December 2012, in which an
appeals court upheld Crestor’s
intellectual property patent
protection until 2016.
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