Ivax Wins:
Ivax said judge declines stay in taxol patent case
NEW YORK, Sept 7 (Reuters) - IVAX Corp. said on Thursday that a federal judge in California stuck with his ruling earlier in the week to possibly open the door for the generic drug maker to sell its copycat version of the top selling breast and ovarian cancer treatment, Taxol.
The Miami-based company said U.S. District Court Judge William Bryne in Los Angeles declined to issue a stay pending appeal of his order requiring Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY) to de-list a patent on Taxol from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's so-called "Orange Book," recently issued to privately-held American BioScience Inc. (ABI).
IVAX said Judge Byrne did grant a "limited stay," expiring at the close of business Sept. 13, to allow ABI and Bristol-Myers to seek a stay from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Wednesday, Judge Byrne ruled he did not have jurisdiction over the tangled patent dispute between the No. 3 U.S. drug
company Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY), California-based ABI and generic pharmaceutical firm IVAX (AMEX: IVX).
The ruling removed ABI's patent from the Orange Book, which lists patents related to already marketed prescriptions drugs such as Taxol. Once a patent lands in the Orange Book, the FDA typically refuses to approve new generic forms of any related drug for up to 30 months in order to let patent disputes wind their way through the courts. |
