In recent weeks, several drug makers announced collaborations for the development, manufacture, and/or commercialization of a variety of biosimilars or follow-on biologics. Below are some highlights: On September 3, 2019, Polpharma Biologics and Sandoz announced that they have entered into a global commercialization agreement in connection with Polpharma’s proposed biosimilar…
As we previously reported, the parties in the follow-on Amgen v. Apotex BPCIA litigation concerning Apotex’s proposed biosimilars of NEUPOGEN (filgrastim) and NEULASTA (pegfilgrastim) informed the district court on August 8 that they were drafting a stipulation and unopposed motion that would substitute Apotex as a party with a then-unnamed…
This past May, in the Amgen v. Sandoz BPCIA litigation concerning Sandoz’s ZARXIO (filgrastim-sndz) biosimilar and proposed pegfilgrastim biosimilar, a Federal Circuit panel affirmed the district court’s judgment of non-infringement in favor of Sandoz. The panel found that Amgen could not prevail on its infringement claims under the doctrine of…
As we previously reported, AbbVie had appealed the PTAB’s final written decisions that the challenged claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 8,889,135, 9,017,680, and 9,073,987, directed to methods of using adalimumab, are unpatentable on obviousness grounds. These final written decisions stemmed from IPR petitions filed by Coherus against all three patents,…
On August 22, Amgen and Allergan announced positive top-line results from a clinical study (JASMINE) comparing the efficacy and safety of the biosimilar candidate ABP 798 (rituximab) to the reference drug Rituxan® in patients with CD20-positive B-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma. As we reported in January, ABP 798 was previously found to…
As we previously reported, in the Amgen v. Mylan litigation concerning Mylan’s FULPHILA (pegfilgrastim-jmdb), a biosimilar of NEULASTA, Amgen and Mylan filed a joint status report in which the parties stipulated that Mylan does not infringe the asserted claims of US Patent 8,273,707. On August 21, 2019, after reviewing the…
We have covered Pfizer’s antitrust suit against Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturer of REMICADE (infliximab), as well as a related antitrust litigation filed by retailers Walgreen and Kroger Co. and direct and indirect purchasers of Remicade. The cases generally allege that Johnson & Johnson excluded Pfizer’s infliximab biosimilar from the market through anticompetitive…
United Healthcare and OneOncology have added Amgen’s MVASI (bevacizumab-awwb) and KANJINTI (trastuzumab-anns), biosimilars to AVASTIN and HERCEPTIN respectively, as preferred products, according to literature released by those providers. United Healthcare released a bulletin indicating that, as of October 1, 2019, United Healthcare will update its preferred product language to reflect…
Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Ltd. announced the launch of VERSAVO (bevacizumab), a biosimilar of Roche’s AVASTIN, in India today. VERSAVO is indicated for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer, non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer, recurrent glioblastoma, metastatic renal cell carcinoma, cervical cancer, metastatic breast cancer and epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube and…
Last week, Big Molecule Watch sat down with Professor Arti Rai to discuss an article she recently co-authored, “How logically impossible patents block biosimilars.” The article, published earlier this month in the journal Nature Biotechnology, examines the differences between the patent and drug approval legal and regulatory regimes and how…