Teva Tasting Own Medicine

The world’s largest generic manufacturer Teva Pharmaceutical Industries instead of challenging Innovators’ drug patents will now be defending its own patented drug Copaxone against the Para IV certification made by Momenta and its partner Sandoz. Generically referred as Glatiramer Acetate, Copaxone is an anti-sclerosis drug that had US sales of $ 1.1 billion last year. Glatiramer is a biotech drug and Teva firmly believes that it would be difficult product to replicate and will require full clinical trials to get approval for the generic Copaxone. Teva said it intended to sue Momenta and Sandoz for alleged patent infringement of Orange Book listed patents. There are seven OB listed patents (US 5,981,589, US 6,054,430, US 6,342,476, US 6,362,161, US 6,620,847, US 6,939,539 and US 7,199,098) covering active ingredient Glatiramer Acetate, pharmaceutical compositions containing it, and methods of using it.