Pfizer prevails in Norvasc patent suit
NEW YORK, Jan. 31 (UPI) — U.S. drug powerhouse Pfizer said Wednesday it has prevailed in its patent dispute with Synthon over the anti-hypertension drug Norvasc.
The company said that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found Synthon obtained by inequitable conduct two U.S. patents alleged to cover a process and an intermediate compound used to make the top-selling drug's active ingredient.
Pfizer said the court issued a ruling that Synthon knowingly withheld from the U.S. Patent Office Pfizer publications and other information that described the process for which Synthon was seeking a patent.
“It's very difficult to meet the standards for establishing inequitable conduct,” said Allen Waxman, an attorney representing Pfizer. “But in this case, it is clear that Synthon improperly used Pfizer's own published material to obtain a patent that it then tried to enforce against us.”
In the case, Synthon had charged that the process Pfizer uses to manufacture Norvasc infringed Synthon patents issued in 2003 and 2005, a process Pfizer said it has published and has used for 15 years.
In August 2006 Pfizer won another court judgment in the dispute that one of the two patents at issue was not infringed by Pfizer and was invalid, mainly because it was based on Pfizer's prior published work.
Synthon had dropped its claim of infringement on the second patent before trial, Pfizer said.
