Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) and Mylan Inc. (Nasdaq:MYL) today announced that certain of their affiliates have agreed to settle and dismiss pending patent litigation involving Copaxone in the UK, Netherlands and France relating to non-infringement and the validity of European Patent 0,762,888, which expires in May 2015.
Teva said that the terms of the settlement are confidential. The company added that to date no European court has issued a decision invalidating the Copaxone patent, which remains intact in the EU until May 2015 and that there are currently no validity challenges in Europe in respect of the Copaxone patent. Teva also stressed that it retains all rights to enforce its patent in the UK, Netherlands and France relating to Copaxone, including against other third parties.
However, earlier this month the US Supreme Court rejected Teva's motion to put a lower court ruling on hold while it decides on the appeal that Teva has submitted. The ruling by the lower court invalidated Teva's Copaxone patent from May 2014 rather than September 2015.
Copaxone has annual sales of $4 billion for Copaxone in 2012 of which $2.9 billion was in the US.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 25, 2013
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