In a reversal of regular pharma business practices, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd have sued Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG and Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc, accusing them of infringing patents held by Teva for thier blockbuster multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, claims that any generic version of Copaxone infringes patents that Teva contends are valid and enforceable.
Teva, is itself the World’s largest maker of generic drugs. It does hold patents for new drugs, and has maintained it has patent protection on Copaxone in the United States is valid until May 2014 and in much of Europe until 2015.
Momenta asserts that Teva’s patents for Copaxone are invalid.
Copaxone is an injected medicine whose sales in the US alone exceeded a billion dollars.
