Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8934

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Publication type: news

Fortson D.
Patent battles could savage drugs giant
The Independent 2007 Mar 18
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2368892.ece

Full text:

Nearly a quarter of the turnover of AstraZeneca, the FTSE 100 drugs giant, could be wiped out by legal challenges to the protection on its best-selling drugs.

The company is fighting lawsuits brought in the US and Europe by makers of cheap generic drugs which are challenging the patents of drugs that represent at least $7.2bn (£3.7bn) in annual sales, according to SG Cowen, an American investment bank. That is equivalent to 27 per cent of the company’s $26.4bn annual turnover.

AstraZeneca, like other drug giants, relies on patents that give it the exclusive right to make and sell the drugs it invents, often for 10 to 15 years. Generics companies make cheap copies of branded drugs once they lose patent protection. Increasingly, they are challenging the validity of these patents years before they expire, leading to a record number of patent lawsuits. Ken Cacciatore, one of the analysts who wrote the Cowen report, estimates that, in the US alone, 36 major patent challenges threaten more than $53bn in annual sales.

“You can really see how aggressive these generics companies are becoming,” Mr Cacciatore said. “They are much more sophisticated that they were even five years ago.”

AstraZeneca gave final evidence last week in the first phase of a trial in a US federal court where Teva Pharmaceuticals is challenging the patent that protects Seroquel. The treatment for schizoprhenia and bi-polar disorder generated $2.4bn in US turnover last year alone. An AstraZeneca spokeswoman declined to comment on the case, referring to the company’s recent annual report in which it said it was “confident” of victory.

Ratiopharm, a German company, has a case before the European Patent Office against the protection for the digestive-system drug Nexium, AstraZeneca’s single best-selling treatment.