Princeton University and drug manufacturer Eli Lilly have filed a lawsuit against Montvale, NJ-based Barr Laboratories alleging infringement on a university patent covering the active chemical in Lilly’s blockbuster lung cancer drug Alimta. The suit aims to prevent Barr from manufacturing a generic version of the drug that brought in more than $1 billion in revenue for Lilly last year. Licensed by Princeton exclusively to Lilly, the Alimta patent was set to expire in 2011 but was extended to 2015 last year after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decided the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had taken an unusually long time to approve the drug. The FDA first approved the drug in 2004, and Alimta went on sale later that year. According to documents released by Lilly, the company pays Princeton royalties that amount to a “single-digit percentage of net sales.” Based on last year’s sales, the university may have received as much as $103.5 million from the deal. Princeton’s new 250,000-square-foot chemistry building is being funded in part by royalties from the sale of Alimta, which is used to treat a form a lung cancer associated with exposure to asbestos. The Barr lawsuit is the third legal battle involving Alimta. Last June, Princeton and Lilly sued two other generic drug manufacturers — Teva Parenteral Medicines Inc. and APP Pharmaceuticals — for infringing the same patent. According to that complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, the companies had notified Lilly and the university that they believed the patent to be invalid, unenforceable, and/or would not be infringed by the generic version of the drug. The suit is still pending. In the meantime, Teva acquired Barr Pharmaceuticals in December 2008.

Go to: UWIRE and The Chronicle of Higher Education

Posted May 13th, 2009 under Tech Transfer

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