An appeals court in the United States has ruled that the Angiomax generic which has been developed by Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ:MYL) does not infringe on a patent that The Medicines Company (NASDAQ:MDCO) holds. Angiomax is a treatment that is used in blood thinning.
The decision by the appeals court was a reversal of a ruling that had been made earlier by an Illinois federal judge who had handed a judgment in favor of The Medicines Company. But by determining that the Angiomax generic version developed by Mylan did not infringe on a patent belonging to The Medicines Company, the Federal Circuit appeals judge did not say whether those same patents were valid or invalid.
Top earner
As the top product for The Medicines Company, Angiomax brought in revenues totaling $121.8 million in 2016. This was a huge chunk of The Medicines Company’s total revenues of $167.8 million in the same year. However, most of this revenue is not derived from sales but rather royalties. The Medicines Company has licensed Sandoz Inc which is the generic unit of Novartis AG to sell a generic version of Angiomax. In the $121.8 million generated from Angiomax last year, royalties from the drug constituted $71.2 million.
EpiPen recall
Mylan’s victory comes at a time when it is grappling with a recall of some EpiPen lots. This follows an alert sent out by the Food and Drug Administration which warned consumers that there would be a voluntary recall nationwide involving 13 lots of the EpiPen Junior and EpiPen. The recall is being necessitated by the fact that these devices may possess a defective part which could result in device activation failures.
So far, there are few reported failures but the potential of the devices failing to activate in the event of a severe allergic reaction still remains and this could be life-threatening. The distribution date of the affected devices was between December 17, 2015 and July 1 last year. Once the owners of these devices return them, they will get a replacement.
On Thursday shares of Mylan N.V. fell by 0.36% to close the day at $38.96.
