Ranbaxy Losses One More Time!

The U.K. Court of Appeal rejected Ranbaxy’s appeal made against the ruling by lower court that its atorvastatin product would infringe the main patent covering lipitor’s active ingredient atorvastatin. The appeal court upheld the lower court’s decision that Pfizer European Patent EP0409281 (the EP ‘281 patent) covering calcium salt of atorvastatin (species) was invalid and Ranbaxy’s proposed product would infringe Pfizer’s European Patent EP0247633 (the EP ‘633 patent) covering atorvastatin (genus). This ruling would delay the Ranbaxy’s move of introducing generic version of Lipitor in UK until November 2011 when the EP ‘633 patent gets expired.