July 22--Pharmaceutical company Novartis can sell a copy of one of Amgen Inc.'s top-selling drugs, an appeals court ruled.
Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, had accused Novartis subsidiary Sandoz of violating the law in its effort to sell a version of its infection-fighting drug Neupogen in the United States.
The Food and Drug Administration on March 6 approved Sandoz's version of the drug, the first time a so-called biosimilar drug had been approved for sale in the U.S.
But Sandoz has been prevented from selling the drug because of litigation brought by Amgen. The appeals court said Novartis can begin selling the drug in the U.S. on Sept. 2. An Amgen spokeswoman declined to say whether the company intends to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Last year, Neupogen U.S. sales were $839 million -- about 4% of Amgen's total product sales.
For decades, U.S. consumers have been able to buy cheaper generic versions of chemical-based pill medicines. Injected biologic drugs, Amgen's specialty, had been exempt from that competition in the U.S. because they were not included in the landmark law that allowed the sale of generic chemical drugs.
