AbbVie, Amgen autoimmune, biosimilars news

AbbVie filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware alleging that Amgen’s ABP 501, a biosimilar of AbbVie’s autoimmune drug Humira adalimumab, infringes 10 patents covering Humira. AbbVie is seeking an injunction to prevent Amgen from launching ABP 501. Once Amgen provides 180-day notice that it plans to market the biosimilar, AbbVie said it plans to assert another 51 patents it believes Amgen infringes. AbbVie said it thinks its Humira patent portfolio is strong enough to keep biosimilars off the U.S. market until 2022. Amgen has stated that it could launch its biosimilar Humira “as soon as 2017” but the best-case scenario for launching with minimal IP risk is late 2018 or early 2019. ...