Teva wins remand from SCOTUS

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 to overturn an appeals court decision that invalidated a patent for Copaxone glatiramer acetate from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE:TEVA). The decision to remand the case to the lower court prevents generic competitors of the multiple sclerosis drug from entering the market until the patent expires on Sept. 1, 2015 and gives Teva additional time to convert patients from its once-daily Copaxone to a thrice-weekly formulation that has patent protection until 2030. According to the company, 62% of Copaxone users had been converted to the new dosage form by YE14.

SCOTUS was to decide whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) overreached by reviewing de novo certain questions of fact in Teva's lawsuit against the Sandoz International GmbH generics unit of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN) rather than deferring to the findings of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (see BioCentury Extra, Oct. 15, 2014). ...