Pfizer announces court victory on Norvasc patent

Pfizer has announced that the federal district court in the Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria) has ruled in the company’s favour regarding the obtaining of two US patents by Synthon IP.

These patents, which the court ruled Synthon had obtained by inequitable conduct, relate to an intermediate compound and methodology involved in the production of Norvasc, a hypertension medication supplied by Pfizer.

According to the court, Synthon had failed to disclose documents from Pfizer relating to the process it was seeking to patent to the US Patent Office.

Synthon had claimed that the process used by Pfizer for the manufacturing of Norvasc had infringed a number of patents issued by the company between 2003 and 2005.

Allen Waxman, general counsel for Pfizer, said: “It’s very difficult to meet the standards for establishing inequitable conduct.

“But in this case it is clear that Synthon improperly used Pfizer’s own published material to obtain a patent that it then tried to enforce against us.”

Pfizer added that it would attempt to be paid legal costs by Synthon, while that company may seek to appeal the case.

Last week, Pfizer announced that it would appeal a decision by the Canadian Federal Court rejecting its attempt to block the approval of a generic form of Lipitor by Ranbaxy.