In a landmark judgement, the Delhi High Court on September 7 dismissed Swiss drug major Hoffmann-La Roche's patent case against India's generic drug major Cipla Ltd for its lung cancer drug Tarceva.

After a four-year hearing, the court dismissed Roche's suit accusing the Indian company of infringing the Swiss company's patent for its lung cancer drug.    The judgement will allow the Indian company to continue selling its generic version of the drug Erlocip, besides paving the way for entry of similar low-cost versions.

In his 280-page judgement, Justice Manmohan Singh observed that it had been scientifically proven that Cipla’s generic version was a polymorph B variant of Roche’s patented drug and that it didn’t actually infringe any patent in India.

Way back in January 2008, the Delhi high court had refused an injunction against Cipla to prevent its sales of generic erlotinib as sought by the Swiss drug company.   The court said that the Roche patent was challenged in the patent office by at least three local drug makers through the revocation route and the decision on this was awaited. Roche then appealed to a division bench of the high court and later to the Supreme Court.  But the case was sent back to the high court on the ground that the decision on patent validity was awaited, and also because an injunction on Cipla’s product may impact patients already on the treatment.