Forest Laboratories, Inc. and Forest Laboratories Holdings, Ltd. (collectively, Forest) announced that Forest and Royalty Pharma Collection Trust (Royalty Pharma) have jointly filed lawsuits in the US District Court for the District of Delaware against several companies for infringement of US Patent No. 6,602,911 (the ‘911 patent), US Patent No. 7,888,342 (the ‘342 patent), and US Patent No. 7,994,220 (the ‘220 patent), which relate to Forest’s Savella product. Forest licenses the ‘911 patent, the ‘342 patent, and the ‘220 patent from Royalty Pharma. The ‘911 patent expires in January 2023, the ‘342 patent expires in November 2021, and the ‘220 patent expires in September 2029.
The defendants named in the lawsuits include Apotex Corp., Hetero USA Inc., Lupin Ltd., Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Par Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., and related companies and subsidiaries.
Forest and Royalty Pharma received notification from these companies that they had filed Abbreviated New Drug Applications with Paragraph IV certifications seeking approval to market generic versions of Savella before the expiration of the ‘911 patent, the ‘342 patent, and the ‘220 patent. The aforementioned lawsuits were commenced before the expiration of forty-five days from the date of receipt of each notification letter.
Forest Laboratories' longstanding global partnerships and track record developing and marketing pharmaceutical products in the United States have yielded its well-established central nervous system and cardiovascular franchises and innovations in anti-infective, respiratory, gastrointestinal and pain management medicine. Forest’s pipeline, the most robust in its history, includes product candidates in all stages of development across a wide range of therapeutic areas.