Amgen’s Roche complaint taken up by US trade commission

Amgen’s complaint against regarding Roche’s American imports of pegylated recombinant human erythropoietin (peg-EPO) products, such as the anaemia drug Recormon, has been accepted by the US International Trade Commission (ITC).

The American company is demanding a ban on all Roche peg-EPO products in to the US. Amgen also filed a lawsuit against Roche for patent infringements in November last year, claiming that Roche is competing unfairly.

An Amgen statement read: “Amgen believes that an investigation by the ITC is an appropriate step towards ensuring fair competition in the United States.”

“We believe Roche’s peg-EPO violates six of our US patents and does not provide any additional clinical or patient benefit over Amgen’s innovative therapies, Eopgen and Aranesp,” it added, before concluding that Amgen had a “proven track record” in defeating patent infringers.

Roche has not commented on Amgen’s claims.

Despite the litigation, Amgen and Roche have a history of cooperation – and Roche still lists Amgen in its list of research and development collaborators. In 2002 Amgen acquired the full European rights for filgrastim and pegfilgrastim, two white-cell booster drugs, from Roche, while in 1991 the two companies jointly developed and marketed Neupogen, a filgrastim-based adjuvant cancer chemotherapy drug.

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