Friday, November 03, 2006
Pfizer vs. Ranbaxy
Generic Lipitor
Quo vadis,Ranbaxy?
Gauri Kamath
Is it curtains for the Indian pharma industry’s most closely-watched legal battle between Pfizer and Ranbaxy Laboratories? Last week, a US court delivered a blow to Ranbaxy’s hopes of launching a copy of Pfizer’s $8.5 billion cholesterol reducer Lipitor in the US before its patent expiry in March 2010. The court refused to revisit its decision made in August 2006 that said Ranbaxy would infringe Pfizer’s patent if it launched its generic.
So, what’s the road ahead for Ranbaxy? It could end the long drawn-out legal battle and wait till March 2010 to launch its copy. That saves it hefty legal expenses. Last year, Ranbaxy spent $30 million on litigation; most of it fighting Pfizer.
Ranbaxy has overturned another Lipitor patent that expires in 2011 in court. So it gets 180 days of market exclusivity. But Pfizer could launch its own Lipitor generic, thus rendering Ranbaxy’s exclusivity meaningless. It is also working on a successor to Lipitor — a combination of Lipitor with an experimental drug called torcetrapib, which increases ‘good’ cholesterol. Pfizer could migrate Lipitor users to this new product by 2010.
“Appeal to the Supreme Court is an option that is open to us for 90 days,” says a Ranbaxy spokesperson. An apex court judgement will take at least an year. It can even send the case back to lower courts. The legal proceedings will buy Pfizer time to come up with a potent defensive strategy even as Ranbaxy continues to pay its lawyers.
Will Ranbaxy pull its punches? The stockmarket isn’t holding its breath. Successive judgements favouring Pfizer, in the US, UK and Austria have virtually knocked off any ‘Lipitor premium’ on Ranbaxy’s stock.
No wonder then that Ranbaxy’s stock price hardly reacted to the latest court decision. It fell just 1 per cent compared with the 9 per cent and 6 per cent drop that followed the first Lipitor judgements in the UK and the US, respectively, a year ago.
Quo vadis,Ranbaxy?
Gauri Kamath
Is it curtains for the Indian pharma industry’s most closely-watched legal battle between Pfizer and Ranbaxy Laboratories? Last week, a US court delivered a blow to Ranbaxy’s hopes of launching a copy of Pfizer’s $8.5 billion cholesterol reducer Lipitor in the US before its patent expiry in March 2010. The court refused to revisit its decision made in August 2006 that said Ranbaxy would infringe Pfizer’s patent if it launched its generic.
So, what’s the road ahead for Ranbaxy? It could end the long drawn-out legal battle and wait till March 2010 to launch its copy. That saves it hefty legal expenses. Last year, Ranbaxy spent $30 million on litigation; most of it fighting Pfizer.
Ranbaxy has overturned another Lipitor patent that expires in 2011 in court. So it gets 180 days of market exclusivity. But Pfizer could launch its own Lipitor generic, thus rendering Ranbaxy’s exclusivity meaningless. It is also working on a successor to Lipitor — a combination of Lipitor with an experimental drug called torcetrapib, which increases ‘good’ cholesterol. Pfizer could migrate Lipitor users to this new product by 2010.
“Appeal to the Supreme Court is an option that is open to us for 90 days,” says a Ranbaxy spokesperson. An apex court judgement will take at least an year. It can even send the case back to lower courts. The legal proceedings will buy Pfizer time to come up with a potent defensive strategy even as Ranbaxy continues to pay its lawyers.
Will Ranbaxy pull its punches? The stockmarket isn’t holding its breath. Successive judgements favouring Pfizer, in the US, UK and Austria have virtually knocked off any ‘Lipitor premium’ on Ranbaxy’s stock.
No wonder then that Ranbaxy’s stock price hardly reacted to the latest court decision. It fell just 1 per cent compared with the 9 per cent and 6 per cent drop that followed the first Lipitor judgements in the UK and the US, respectively, a year ago.
