Merck and Teva Go to Court over Singulair Going Generic

Teva has been pretty aggressive of late. Both Merck and Teva are also preeminent players in pharma's race to develop Biosimilar drugs. Patents and intellectual property are big news today and even with just the challenge, Teva might stand to gain something from the current action, strangers things have happened in the world of pharma today, so what exactly is in a patent today one might wonder? Singulair is not a biosimilar drug, but it appears biosimilar could be the next generation of generics in some shape or form. BD

“The terms "Biosimilar" or "Follow-on Biologic" refer to products that are marketed after expiration of patents, which are claimed to have similar properties to existing biologic products. Due to the complexity of biologics, a product can only be made that is similar, but not identical.”

Another big drug company is fighting with a generics maker over how soon a top-selling drug can go generic.

Merck and Israeli generics maker Teva have a date set for Monday in federal court in Trenton, N.J., over the patent protecting the allergy and asthma drug Singulair. Teva is challenging the validity of Singulair’s patent, which expires in 2012, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

The stakes are high for Merck. The company’s top-selling drug, Singulair brought in $4.3 billion in sales in 2008, or 18% of total sales. But the drug’s sales slipped 3% in the fourth quarter, and sales of another major product, the blockbuster cervical-cancer vaccine Gardasil, have fallen too.