French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi initiates patent infringement lawsuit against Merck

2020-12-08
French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi SA said that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against US drugmaker Merck & Co to prevent the company from launching the same competing drugs as its own product Lantus. Currently, Lantus is Sanofi's best-selling diabetes treatment drug.


On Monday, Sanofi stated in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Delaware that Merck Sharp & Dohme, the international business unit of Merck, has infringed on as many as 10 Sanofi patented technologies. This includes a patent related to the insulin drug Lantus and the insulin injection device soloSTAR.


The French pharmaceutical company said that after Merck submitted a new drug clinical application application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it has initiated legal proceedings against Merck.


But Merck did not immediately respond to outside requests for comment.


At present, as many pharmaceutical companies follow suit in the United States to imitate the insulin drug Lantus, Sanofi’s most important diabetes treatment drugs are in multiple siege. The introduction of these low-cost generic drugs will put the insulin drug Lantus under pressure in the United States, and it will also quickly erode Sanofi’s profits in the diabetes drug business. Currently, 20% of Sanofi's total revenue comes from the sale of diabetes treatment drugs.


According to reports, in the first half of this year, Sanofi’s diabetes drug revenue fell 6% to 2.9 billion euros (3.2 billion US dollars); while sales of the best-selling drug Lantus fell 15%, with sales revenue of 2.38 billion euros. The company said that due to increased competition from other insulin manufacturers, the company expects revenue from diabetes medicines to continue to decline in the future.


In January 2014, Sanofi also filed a lawsuit against another US pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly & Co., against Lantus drug patent infringement. It was only two years later that Sanofi reached a settlement agreement with Eli Lilly, which required Eli Lilly to delay the launch of its new insulin drug to December 2016 and pay Sanofi a royalty.


It is reported that in order to increase the types of new drugs and improve performance growth, Sanofi has sought to acquire Medivation, a US biologics company, which is a NASDAQ-listed company, which is mainly dedicated to the development of prostate cancer treatment drugs. . The drug currently entering the market is Xtandi, and two other drugs are in clinical trials.


But in August of this year, the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. beat Sanofi for $14 billion and acquired Medivation.

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