The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Helsinn Healthcare’s attempt to revive the patent on its anti-nausea drug Aloxi. The rejection is a boon for for Teva, which launched a generic version of Aloxi last year after it had succesfully convinced a lower court to invalidate Helsinn's patent.
The court unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that had canceled Helsinn’s Aloxi patent for violating a provision in patent law that forbids sales of an invention before applying for a patent.
The case focused on a licensing and purchase agreement that Helsinn made with another pharma company in 2001 to distribute the drug in the United States and defray its own costs. The deal was announced in regulatory filings and a press release. Teva argued that the patent was invalid because the deal was reached nearly two years before Helsinn first applied for a patent and constituted a public sale.
Read the Reuters report