JERUSALEM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA) announced today the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has found in favor of Teva in the Company’s patent infringement lawsuit against Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc./Sandoz Inc. and Mylan Laboratories Inc./Natco Pharmaceuticals regarding Teva’s relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) product, COPAXONE®. Teva filed suit against Momenta/Sandoz and Mylan/Natco for infringement of multiple patents covering the chemical composition of COPAXONE®, methods of using the product and processes for manufacturing the product. This decision covers several patents, the last of which expires on September 1, 2015.
The judge rejected Momenta/Sandoz and Mylan/Natco’s claims that the COPAXONE® patents are invalid and unenforceable and found that the purported generic versions of COPAXONE® for which Momenta/Sandoz and Mylan/Natco seek Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval infringe those patents. This ruling should prevent the FDA from approving, and the defendants from selling their purported generic versions of COPAXONE® in the U.S. until the Orange Book patents expire on May 24, 2014. As a result of this ruling, Teva also believes that the defendants will be enjoined from selling their products until the process patent expires on September 1, 2015. Furthermore, any purported generic version of COPAXONE® would need to obtain FDA approval prior to being made available to the public. At this point, it is unclear what the requirements would be for approval of a purported generic synthetic peptide.
Dr. Jeremy Levin, Teva’s President and Chief Executive Officer stated, “Teva is confident COPAXONE® will remain a proprietary, global market leading product for the reduction of relapses in patients with RRMS over the product’s lifecycle given the strength of its intellectual property (IP) rights.”
About Teva
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA) is a leading global pharmaceutical company, committed to increasing access to high-quality healthcare by developing, producing and marketing affordable generic drugs as well as innovative and specialty pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients. Headquartered in Israel, Teva is the world's leading generic drug maker, with a global product portfolio of more than 1,300 molecules and a direct presence in about 60 countries. Teva's branded businesses focus on CNS, oncology, pain, respiratory and women's health therapeutic areas as well as biologics. Teva currently employs approximately 46,000 people around the world and reached $18.3 billion in net revenues in 2011.
Teva’s Safe Harbor Statement under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:
This release contains forward-looking statements, which express the current beliefs and expectations of management. Such statements are based on management’s current beliefs and expectations and involve a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause our future results, performance or achievements to differ significantly from the results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include risks relating to: our ability to develop and commercialize additional pharmaceutical products, competition for our innovative products, especially Copaxone® (including competition from innovative orally-administered alternatives, as well as from potential generic equivalents), competition for our generic products (including from other pharmaceutical companies and as a result of increased governmental pricing pressures), competition for our specialty pharmaceutical businesses, our ability to achieve expected results through our innovative R&D efforts, the effectiveness of our patents and other protections for innovative products, decreasing opportunities to obtain U.S. market exclusivity for significant new generic products, our ability to identify, consummate and successfully integrate acquisitions (including the acquisition of Cephalon), the effects of increased leverage as a result of the acquisition of Cephalon, the extent to which any manufacturing or quality control problems damage our reputation for high quality production and require costly remediation, our potential exposure to product liability claims to the extent not covered by insurance, increased government scrutiny in both the U.S. and Europe of our agreements with brand companies, potential liability for sales of generic products prior to a final resolution of outstanding patent litigation, including that relating to the generic version of Protonix®, our exposure to currency fluctuations and restrictions as well as credit risks, the effects of reforms in healthcare regulation and pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement, any failures to comply with complex Medicare and Medicaid reporting and payment obligations, governmental investigations into sales and marketing practices (particularly for our specialty pharmaceutical products), uncertainties surrounding the legislative and regulatory pathway for the registration and approval of biotechnology-based products, adverse effects of political or economical instability, major hostilities or acts of terrorism on our significant worldwide operations, interruptions in our supply chain or problems with our information technology systems that adversely affect our complex manufacturing processes, any failure to retain key personnel (including Cephalon employees) or to attract additional executive and managerial talent, the impact of continuing consolidation of our distributors and customers, variations in patent laws that may adversely affect our ability to manufacture our products in the most efficient manner, potentially significant impairments of intangible assets and goodwill, potential increases in tax liabilities, the termination or expiration of governmental programs or tax benefits, environmental risks and other factors that are discussed in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2011 and in our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.