The Federal Court of Australia has granted an injunction against Apotex, banning it from selling generic mometasone furoate nasal sprays in the country pending the outcome of a patent infringement lawsuit by Merck Sharpe & Dohme Australia. Apotex, which claims that MSD’s patent is invalid, had already begun marketing the nasal sprays and intended to begin shipping product this month.
After reviewing expert testimony from both sides, the judge noted that, “I am not persuaded that Apotex has a strong case that as at the priority date, by reason of the common general knowledge, the notional research group would have been directly led as a matter of course to try MF as an intra-nasal once-daily treatment of allergic rhinitis with the substantial absence of systemic levels of MF in the bloodstream in the expectation that it might well produce a useful product or process,” while at the same time, “Apotex’s arguments about the prior art are plainly not without substance.”
Read the Australian Federal Court ruling.
