Wyeth/Altana lose Protonix IP appeal

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unanimously affirmed a September 2007 ruling, which denied a motion filed by US drug major  Wyeth and Germany's Altana for a preliminary injunction related to  Israeli generics giant Teva Pharmaceutical Industries' pantoprazole  sodium delayed-release tablets. The court found that the evidence  "supports the District Court's overriding decision" that Teva had  provided a "sufficient case" regarding the invalidity of the drug's  patent.

Teva's generic version is AB-rated to Wyeth's proton pump inhibitor  Protonix, which generated revenues of $806.0 million for the US firm in  2008, a drop of 58% on the previous year, due to the advent of  un-branded competition in December 2007. A further copy product from  India's Sun Pharmaceuticals made its appearance on the US market in  January 2008.

Altana, which licensed the product to Wyeth, contends that its patent on  pantoprazole extends to January 2011. Although the German firm was  acquired by Nycomed in 2006 for $5.7 billion, it remains a named company  in the law suit, noted the Bloomberg news service.