Lundbeck wins Cipralex case

Lundbeck, a Danish pharmaceutical company, has won its battle in a UK appeals court over a patent regarding Cipralex.

The case was a dispute over the active ingredient in the anti-depressant drug with Israeli generic drug manufacturer Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.

Teva won an initial hearing in a lower court last year, but the England and Wales court of appeal ruled that Lundbeck’s discovery of how to make the active ingredient entitles it to a patent over the compound, the Bloomberg news agency reports.

A ruling in favour of Lundbeck means that the company will not face generic competition in the UK until after 2014, the news agency noted.

Around 75 per cent of the firm’s sales come from this medicine, which is sold in the US under the name Lexapro. Bloomberg data suggests it is the third-biggest anti-depressant on sale in the world, after Effexor, which is produced by Wyeth, and Eli Lilly’s Cymbalta.