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Biotech / Medical : Pharma News Only (pfe,mrk,wla, sgp, ahp, bmy, lly) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (1299)	1/13/1999 12:59:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 1722

Lilly Wins Early Round in Prozac Battle With Barr (Update2) Bloomberg News January 13, 1999, 12:19 p.m. ET Lilly Wins Early Round in Prozac Battle With Barr (Update2) Indianapolis, Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Eli Lilly & Co. said it won an early round in its legal battle to keep Barr Laboratories Inc. from selling a generic version of its top-selling drug, the antidepressant Prozac, causing Lilly shares to rise. Lilly sought an injunction against Barr after Barr filed an application with U.S. regulators to sell a generic version of Prozac. The drug's $2.6 billion in 1997 sales made up about 30 percent of Lilly's revenue. The trial between the two starts Jan. 25. The court already has set aside two of the disputed points, including Barr's question about Lilly's ''double-patent'' on Prozac. Lilly has one patent on the actual compound of Prozac that expires in 2001. Another patent on the way the drug works expires in 2003. ''Barr tried to say you can't patent Prozac twice and the court threw that out,'' said Cynthia Beach, an analyst with Gerard Klauer Mattison. ''That gives a little more credence to 2003,'' as the time when Lilly could lose the patent on Prozac. Lilly rose 4 1/8 to 80 5/8 in midday trading. Earlier, the shares touched 81 3/4. Barr already has taken on some of the world's larger drugmakers, such as Zeneca Group Plc and Bayer AG, and won. Its victories have given Barr the right to sell a generic version of Zeneca's breast-cancer drug. No decisions are likely in the Barr case for months, Beach said. The trial itself likely will last at least several weeks. In a release, Lilly said U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana already ruled on motions in the case. These rulings ''substantially reduce the number of issues to be decided,'' Lilly said. Barr, based in Pomona, New York, fell 2 1/16 to 44 1/2. In its release, Barr said it was ''disappointed'' with the decision on double patenting. ''The fact that Barr said it was disappointed, that's significant,'' Beach said. --Kerry Dooley in the Princeton newsroom (609) 279-4016/gfh