Patent war! Sanofi, Zaiyuan and Amgen are breaking up again?

On February 25, Amgen announced that the jury of Delaware region in the United States had ruled that the claims in Amgen's patent were valid, and rejected Sanofi / zayuan's patent claim At the same time, Sanofi / zaharan said in a statement that they do not agree with the ruling or may continue to appeal Why not finish the patent war? Dating back to 2014, Amgen sued Sanofi / zayuan's praluent for infringing three of its repatha patents On February 22, 2016, Sanofi / Zaiyuan admitted that it had violated some claims claimed in the Amgen patent, and turned to whether the patent itself should be recognized: "the patent goes beyond the discovery of Amgen, making it improperly cover a new type of therapy" On March 16, 2016, the jury ruled that the claims in the patent of Amgen were valid; on January 5, 2017, the court announced that it would impose a permanent injunction on the praluent, and could not produce and sell the praluent in the U.S market, and decided to postpone the enforcement for 30 days; Sanofi filed an urgent motion with the local court to postpone the enforcement of the injunction until the end of the appeal; On January 9, 2017, the local court rejected the motion, but at the same time changed the 30 day delay to 45 days The judgment said that 45 days would give Sanofi enough time to appeal to the Federal Circuit Court The patent war shocked the whole pharmaceutical industry, and the watching melon eaters made a sweat for the game between the two sides Finally, on January 6, Sue Robinson, a Delaware district judge, ruled that Sanofi and zayuan would stop selling praluent for 12 years because the drug infringed the patent of repatha, a similar drug of Amgen Amgen wins in the first place, but Sanofi / Reborn yuan loses and returns The essence of the patent dispute is that the interests of both sides are torn behind the patent war Repatha of Amgen and praluent of Sanofi are both McAbs, targeting a protein called PCSK9, which can reduce the liver's ability to remove LDL-C from the blood LDL-C is recognized as the main risk factor of cardiovascular disease PCSK9 inhibitor provides a new treatment mode to fight against LDL-C, which is regarded as the biggest progress in the field of lipid reduction after statins On February 7, Sanofi announced its 2018 results, with a net income of 34.464 billion euros, an increase of 2.5% compared with 2017 According to the annual report, the sales volume of praluent (alirocumab) in 2018 reached US $261 million, an increase of 56.1% year on year, and its growth rate is second only to that of Sanofi's other core product, IL-6R monoclonal antibody kevzara (sarilumab) Its market efficiency is full of imagination In addition, Sanofi has encountered a bottleneck in the field of diabetes Moreover, PCSK9 target products on the global market only come from Sanofi and Amgen So for such a potential heavy bomb, Sanofi will not let go of any chance to overturn On January 29, Amgen announced its performance in 2018, achieving a total revenue of US $23.747 billion, an increase of 4% compared with 2017 According to the annual report, repatha2's sales reached US $550 million in 018, a 72% year-on-year increase, making it the drug with the highest year-on-year growth rate among Amgen's core products Take a look at the sales comparison chart of repatha and praluent since they went public The strength of repatha and praluent is equal from the beginning to the present stage So it is also expected that Sanofi / zaharan will appeal the patent issue again this time If two tigers fight against each other, there will be one wound Will Sanofi continue to bear the "cost" of the fight? As industry analysts speculate, Sanofi will pay 15% - 20% of praluent sales as royalties to Amgen in order to squeeze into the US market Information source: amjin official website, e drug manager data source: annual report statement of the enterprise: this opinion only represents the author, not the position of drug intelligence website, welcome to exchange and supplement in the message area; if you need to reprint, please be sure to indicate the author and source of the article.