"Four years of legal action" forecast in Spain over drug patent decision

Industrial commentators are forecasting four years of legal actions in the Spanish pharmaceutical sector following a decision by a Barcelona tribunal. The tribunal - the Audiencia Provincial - has appeared to challenge the admittedly creaking national patents system in Spain by confirming a developing trend and barring the Cinfa, Alter and Kern enterprises from producing generic versions of US drug major Eli Lilly's anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa (olanzapine).This is used to treat forms of schizophrenia and is still the company's biggest earner. The drug is not due to lose patent protection until 2011.

The ruling is understood to make clear that the Zyprexa patent will be protected in order that the Spanish system respects international intellectual property and patent law. However, the case before the tribunal is being described as the first of at least 20 possible actions to come before the Spanish courts over patent law. The calculation is based on the number of patent expiries on some 20 drug compounds whose total sales in the national market come to around 1.5 billion euros ($2.22 billion).

Spanish patents expire three years earlier