Amgen has announced that its adalimumab biosimilar AMGEVITA launched yesterday in European markets. This is Amgen’s first “inflammation” biosimilar to launch in Europe, and its second biosimilar to launch in Europe overall. According to Amgen, two Phase 3 studies confirmed that AMGEVITA showed biosimilarity to adalimumab, showing no clinically meaningful…
As we have previously reported, a jury in September 2017 issued a $70,000,000 verdict against Hospira based on its drug substance manufacturing activity in 2013-2015 in connection with its biosimilar of Amgen’s Epogen® (epoetin alfa). The parties then engaged in post-trial motion practice, seeking to overturn various portions of the…
Amgen filed a complaint against Apotex today in the Middle District of Florida, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent No. 9,856,287 based on Apotex’s aBLAs for filgrastim and pegfilgrastim biosimilars. The ’287 patent issued on January 2, 2018 and is directed to methods of protein refolding in non-mammalian expression systems. According to…
As we previously reported, the district court granted Sandoz’s motion for summary judgment of non-infringement in the ongoing Amgen v. Sandoz litigation, which relates to Sandoz’s filgrastim and pegfilgrastim biosimilars. Amgen filed its opening Federal Circuit appeal brief in May, arguing that the district court made several errors in its…
United States Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) recently sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Joseph Simons urging the “FTC to examine global patent settlements relating to biosimilars to ensure they are not in violation of antitrust laws.” According to the Senators, “biologics constitute a…
We previously reported that in the ongoing Genentech v. Amgen litigation regarding Amgen’s proposed bevacizumab biosimilar, Mvasi™, Amgen moved to dismiss Genentech’s declaratory judgement counts relating to when Amgen could begin commercial marketing of its product. In particular, Genentech had sought a judgment that Amgen could not market its product…
AbbVie recently announced positive results for upadacitinib, a small molecule Janus Kinase (JAK) inhibitor, in a phase 3 clinical trial of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). According to AbbVie, upadacitinib met all primary and secondary endpoints in the study, including superiority versus adalimumab, the anti-TNFα antibody that Abbvie markets as…
Pegfilgrastim litigation We had previously covered Judge Stark’s grant of Coherus’s motion to dismiss Amgen’s complaint alleging infringement of the ‘707 patent in Amgen v. Coherus. Today, Judge Stark entered judgment against Amgen and dismissed the case. In the Amgen v. Mylan litigation earlier covered here, Mylan recently filed a…
Last week the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (“CHMP”) of the European Medicines Agency (“EMA”) recommended two biosimilar medicines for approval. First, the CHMP adopted a positive opinion for the marketing authorization of Kanjinti® (ABP 980), Amgen and Allergan’s proposed biosimilar to Herceptin® (trastuzumab). The CHMP opinion recommends…
As we previously reported, Amgen is seeking en banc review of the Federal Circuit panel decision vacating a permanent injunction that would have otherwise prohibited the sale of Sanofi and Regeneron’s Praluent® (alirocumab) product and remanding the appeal to the district court for a new trial on the defendants’ written…