A white paper released in 2019 by The Biosimilars Forum and Medicines for Europe shows the United States and Europe accounting for more than a combined 80% of sales of biologic medicines, and more than a combined 90% of biosimilars.[1] This, of course, has led to a focus on these markets for the biopharmaceutical
On January 15, 2020, Hospira filed a petition for rehearing en banc asking the full Federal Circuit to reconsider a prior panel’s analysis of the Safe Harbor provision and reverse the finding of infringement. In December 2019, the Federal Circuit affirmed the District of Delaware’s decision denying Hospira’s motion for judgment as a matter of
As pharmaceutical drug costs attract increasing media attention
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the E.U. European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced that Slovakia has beeen added to a mutual recognition agreement (MRA) regarding good manufacturing practice (GMP) inspections in the European Union. Slovakia was the last of the 28 member states of the European Union to be recognized as capable of
On July 11, 2019, more than 110 House Democrats wrote a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer expressing strong opposition to provisions in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade agreement, including the provision setting a minimum of 10 years of marketing exclusivity for biologic drugs.
As discussed here, in the United States,
Canada implemented its patent term extension program, the Certificate of Supplementary Protection (CSP) framework, on September 21, 2017. The CSP regime is beneficial to qualifying pharmaceutical product developers because it can add up to two additional years of patent protection. Notably, CSP is not as beneficial as other major jurisdictions, which generally allow up to
In a recent precedential opinion[1], the Federal Circuit rejected arguments by Amgen that a single step purification process used by Sandoz for its G-CSF biosimilar infringed claims of Amgen’s patent describing a multistep purification procedure for proteins expressed in a non-mammalian system.
In this case, the Federal Circuit explained that the doctrine of
On May 20, 2019, the PTAB denied a request for rehearing in Apotex Inc. v. Amgen Inc., Case IPR2016-01542 (Paper 67), but modified its Final Written Decision. In the Final Written Decision, the PTAB found claims 1-17 and 19-24 of U.S. Patent No. 8,952,138 (“the ’138 patent”) unpatentable. The ’138 patent is directed towards
On April 25, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) approved new biosimilar product EticovoTM (etanercept-ykro) by Samsung Bioepis. Eticovo is a biosimilar to Enbrel® (etanercept), which is marketed by Amgen, Inc. (“Amgen”). Like Enbrel, Eticovo was approved across five eligible indications for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, plaque psoriasis, psoriatic