Eli Lilly wins Alimta dispute against Sun
A judge at the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana has handed down a final judgment in a patent dispute between Eli Lilly and Sun Pharmaceutical favouring Eli Lilly.
The judgment, which was handed down on Monday, May 1, stated that the patent that Eli Lilly had accused Sun of infringing was breached.
The patent involved in the case was US number 7,772,209, titled “Novel antifolate combination therapies”.
Eli Lilly filed the complaint in 2013 at the same district court, where it alleged that Sun had infringed the patent-in-suit by filing an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) with the Food and Drug Administration.
Sun was seeking permission to market a generic version of Eli Lilly’s Alimta (pemetrexed) product, used for the treatment of cancer.
In the judgment, the district court granted Eli Lilly’s request to enjoin Sun from bringing the generic drug to market before the expiry date of the patent.
According to the “Hatch-Waxman ANDA Litigation Report 2017” published by Lex Machina, the number of ANDA disputes filed in 2016 dropped for the first time in three years from 468 to 316.
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