A Billion Here, A Billion There...

Last week Johnson and Johnson/Centocor won it's patent law suit against Abbott concerning Humira.  The jury trial concluded that adalimumab (Humira) inpinged on J&J's patent for infliximab, and awarded them 1.7 billion dollars.  Apparently they felt that the fully human antibody was not adequately different from infliximab.  Hard to believe that a jury is left to ponder these kind of decisions.  In any case, Abbott would continue to sell their drug but would owe royalties.  Given that sales of Humira in 2008 were in the order of 4.5 billion dollars, we're talking about serious cash.  Not that Abbott is caving though.  They're appealing the decision and counter suing J&J over Symponi, J&J's own fully human anti-TNF that is just now coming out.  Could be amusing.

Comments

[Helen]

As an RA patient who pretty much owes her functionality to Enbrel, I'm always of two minds about things like this.

Of course competition keeps drug companies on their toes and always searching for the newest big thing, but it's hard to get behind anyone in cases of this sort. It seems only to get in the way of patient access.

[3+speckled]

I agree it's hard to cheer for anybody. The extra billions won't convince schering to share the wealth by decreasing their prices. Besides, tomorrow Abbott might be buying Schering or vice versa. I just keep my fingers crossed that the drugs keep coming and the insurance companies keep paying.

[Helen]

Agreed - I've been lucky that, with a lot of fight and pushing of pencils on the part of my rheumatologist and myself, I've had almost 6 years of (nearly) consistent coverage of Enbrel.

It's a constant back-and-forth, though. Each year my insurance company seem to think I've miraculously stopped needing it, and we go through the process of proving that I do all over again.