Ranbaxy scores over Pfizer in Norwegian court over cholesterol drug

The Norwegian court said
10 November 2005

The Norwegian court said there was non-infringement by the Indian company of one key process patent, though the product was found to infringe another Pfizer patent covering a particular intermediate compound. Ranbaxy plans to appeal against that judgement.
Two other Liptior patents were at issue but were not ruled upon, Ranbaxy said in a statement.

Last week Ranbaxy Laboratories won permission to appeal against a British court ruling of October 12, which had blocked the company's attempt to launch a generic copy of Pfizer Inc's Lipitor.

The British high court had ruled that the basic patent on Lipitor, which expires in November 2011, was valid, although a more specific patent, expiring in July 2010, was not valid. The October ruling on the $11 billion-a-year anti-cholesterol drug was an important victory for Pfizer, the world's biggest pharmaceutical company.

This was a major blow for Ranbaxy Laboratories, which is rapidly emerging an indigenous generics giant. The British court upheld the American drug major's main patent, 633 relating to its multi-billion dollar cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor. However, the court invalidated Pfizer's patent 281, which is the calcium salt used in making Lipitor.

Due to the court ruling, the early launch of Lipitor's generic version was stopped in UK, a market that accounts for nearly 7 percent of Lipitor's global sales. Ranbaxy had said that it would appeal the verdict in a higher U K court saying it was confident of winning the higher court ruling.