Amgen Loses High Court Appeal

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Amgen Inc. in a patent fight it has been waging with two other companies over one of its anemia drugs, the Wall Street Journal reports.


The high court has reviewed several areas of patent law in recent years, including issuing two major patent rulings in April. Despite intrigue from patent-law interests, the justices took a pass on the Amgen lawsuit.


Amgen has been trying to stop two companies — Aventis Pharmaceuticals Inc., a unit of Sanofi-Aventis, and Shire Human Genetic Therapies Inc., a unit of Shire PLC — from offering competing drugs to Epogen, one of two anemia drugs that have driven the company’s profits. Aventis is formerly known as Hoechst Marion Roussel Inc., while Shire is formerly known as Transkaryotic Therapies Inc.


Epogen, used as an anti-anemia treatment for cancer patients, is one of the drugs an expert Food and Drug Administration panel last week recommended be restricted following the release of negative clinical studies on it and similar drugs.


Amgen sued Aventis and Shire in 1997 for allegedly violating several drug patents it holds. Through a series of federal trial court holdings and appeals, Amgen has won some key patent victories in the litigation. But it has had mixed results with one of its patents as the Federal U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a special patent court in Washington, has twice reversed a U.S. District Court’s holdings.


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