The Wall Street Journal‘s Health Blog has an article explaining how Abbott is able to prevent generic competition in its sales of TriCor, a cholesterol-reducing drug first marketed in Europe in 1975. The reason:
Abbott licensed the compound to sell in the U.S. in 1998, and has been jockeying to keep it patented ever since ….
In 1999, a generic drug company that was later acquired by Teva applied to market a generic version of TriCor. Abbott sued for patent infringement, changed the dosage of TriCor and changed it to a tablet from a capsule. Then the company filed for a patent on the slightly modified form of the drug and bought back the capsules that pharmacies still had on their shelves.
Because the company had changed the type of pill and the dosage, pharmacists couldn’t swap in the generic capsules Teva planned to introduce, because they were no longer identical to the tablets Abbott was selling. In 2002, Teva asked the FDA for permission to sell a generic version of the tablets, and Abbott again altered the dosage and formulation.
Jacob Goldstein, “How a Decades-Old Drug Is Still a Patented Blockbuster”, WSJ Health Blog, 1 December 2009.
In March 2011, Abbott’s new patent runs out, which might be good news for Teva and for patients. But don’t get your hopes up, since “last year, the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] approved a new Abbott drug called Trilipix, which is similar to TriCor but which is approved for use in combination with statins, a popular class of cholesterol drug. Now Abbott is busy trying to get patients to switch from TriCor to TriLipix before TriCor goes generic.” The generic name for TriCor, by the way, is fenofibrate.
Thanks to “Mike the Actuary” for the pointer.
Tags: pharma
