Eli Lilly loses UK Alimta patent case to Actavis

Eli Lilly and Co LLY.N said on Thursday it lost a patent case in the English High Court over its blockbuster Alimta lung cancer drug to generic drugmaker Actavis Plc ACT.N. The court ruled that Actavis would not infringe patents held by Lilly if it marketed certain alternative salt forms of the drug, known generically as pemetrexed, in Britain and several other European countries in 2015. Actavis wants to sell its alternative versions of the medicine when Alimta’s compound patents expire in 2015. \”Although Alimta’s compound patents remain in force and are expected to provide exclusivity in major European countries through 2015, we continue to believe that Alimta’s vitamin dosage regimen patents would be infringed by the entry of generic pemetrexed in Europe prior to June, 2021,\” Lilly’s general counsel Michael Harrington said in a statement.