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Photo: Courtesy of Eli Lilly
4 April 2017Big Pharma

UK Supreme Court hears Eli Lilly dispute with Actavis

A five-year dispute between Eli Lilly and Actavis over a cancer drug is being heard today at the UK Supreme Court.

The drug in dispute is Eli Lilly’s Alimta (pemetrexed disodium), which has been sold since 2004.

The question the court will answer is whether a new pemetrexed-based cancer treatment produced by Actavis and others infringes Eli Lilly’s patent and its foreign designations, either directly or indirectly.

Several decisions have been made in the ongoing battle.

In May 2014, Mr Justice Arnold held that Actavis’s product would not infringe the patents, directly or indirectly.

Following this, in June 2015, Lord Justices Kitchin, Floyd and Longmore upheld Arnold’s decision in respect of direct infringement, but the three judges reversed the indirect infringement finding.

Then, in December 2015, Actavis launched a pemetrexed diacid product in the UK.

Its pemetrexed products were granted declarations of non-infringement in the UK, France, Italy and Spain, but only for the products that were diluted in dextrose.

Eli Lilly claimed that Actavis was aware that some consumers would dilute the product with saline, despite directions to only dilute with dextrose.

In February 2016, Arnold ruled on whether the supply of Actavis’s product with instructions to dilute with dextrose would indirectly infringe the patents.

He backed Actavis—finding that it was not foreseeable that consumers would dilute the product with saline.

The claims of the patent-in-suit, EP 1 313 508, concern the use of pemetrexed disodium for inhibiting tumour growth.

The supplementary protection certificate for the basic patent for pemetrexed expired on December 10, 2015.


More on this story

Big Pharma
7 July 2017   The UK Supreme Court has ruled that Actavis’s generic versions of cancer drug Alimta directly infringe patents owned by Eli Lilly, reversing two earlier decisions.
Big Pharma
12 July 2017   The UK Supreme Court has reformulated the three questions that should be asked when testing for equivalent patent infringement.

More on this story

Big Pharma
7 July 2017   The UK Supreme Court has ruled that Actavis’s generic versions of cancer drug Alimta directly infringe patents owned by Eli Lilly, reversing two earlier decisions.
Big Pharma
12 July 2017   The UK Supreme Court has reformulated the three questions that should be asked when testing for equivalent patent infringement.