Debiopharm, Sun Pharmaceutical, Actavis, Hospira, Par Pharmaceutical, sanofi-aventis cancer news
Debiopharm and sanofi-aventis settled additional patent suits related to cancer chemotherapeutic Eloxatin oxaliplatin, which the pharma markets in the U.S. under license from Debiopharm. Under the settlement, Actavis, Hospira and Par would stop selling generics of the drug on June 30 and would have a license to resume on Aug. 9, 2012, about eight months before the first of two patents at issue is set to expire. If approved by the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Attorney General for the State of Michigan, the settlements would resolve litigation in the U.S. District Courts for the Districts of Columbia and New Jersey. The suits alleged the generics companies infringed Debiopharm's U.S. Patents Nos. 5,338,874 and 5,716,988 by marketing versions of Eloxatin.
Further terms of the settlement were not disclosed. On April 1, sanofi-aventis announced similar settlements with APP Pharmaceuticals Inc., the generics unit of Fresenius SE (Xetra:FRE, Bad Homburg, Germany); Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NASDAQ:TEVA, Petah Tikva, Israel); and Sandoz International GmbH, the generics unit of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN, Basel, Switzerland) (see BioCentury, April 5). ...