Ajanta Pharma succeeds in revoking Allergan Patents

MUMBAI, India - Aug. 9, 2013 - PRLog -- Ajanta Pharma succeeds in revoking Allergan Patents
 
Mumbai – (August 09, 2013) – In yet another landmark victory to the Indian Patent Scenario, Ajanta Pharma Limited, a specialty focused pharmaceutical formulation company, emerged successful in revoking two composition patents of Allergan Inc.Ajanta had applied for revocation of both the patents under independent applications in 2011 on grounds of obviousness, not an invention, not patentable, insufficiency and non-disclosure under Section 8 of the Patents Act (2005) with Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). The combination patent decision has emerged as a landmark decision at IPAB. 

Both the patents viz. IN 212695 and IN 219504 were on medicines for eye-related treatments and were granted by the Kolkata Patent Office in December 2007 and May 2008 respectively.   IN 212695 was related to invention for the composition covering Bimatoprost and Timolol (GANFORT of Allergan) whereas IN 219504 was related to invention for the composition covering Brimonidine and Timolol (COMBIGAN of Allergan).  Ajanta filed revocation petitions with IPAB for both the patents believing that both these patents are invalid and unenforceable under IPA, 1970 and that these patents were granted on false representation. The IPAB, which has been constituted by the Central Government in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to hear appeals against the decisions of the Registrar/Controller from the Patent & Trademark Offices and all appeals from various High Courts, rightly revoked both these patents on grounds of Obviousness and Breach of section (8) of IPA, 1970, as put forward by Ajanta. 

Ajanta has already been successfully selling BIMAT T and BIDIN LS TM in Indian market and will continue to sell backed by this favorable verdict.  

About Ajanta Pharma Limited
Ajanta Pharma is a speciality pharmaceutical formulation company. Ranked 45^th in the Indian formulation market (IMS MAT Mar’13); company has leading brands in therapeutic segments of Ophthalmology, Dermatology and Cardiology. Many of company’s products are first in the market place and are leading in their sub therapeutic segments. Company has a well established branded generic business in emerging markets of Asia, Africa and Latin America. It has entered in the regulated markets of USA last year and is building a portfolio of ANDAs for this market. It has also received marketing authorization in 11 EU countries including UK, for one of its product. 

For last 10 years, company’s consolidated performance has been outstanding with CAGR of 23% in revenue and 53% in net profit.

Ajanta Pharma has its State of the Art R&D centre for formulation development, located at Mumbai, having a team of more than 250 people. Company has world class manufacturing facilities - 4 located in India and 1 at Mauritius. One of the manufacturing facilities in India holds approval from US FDA, UK MHRA, World health organisation (WHO) Pre-qualification, apart from having the approval from FDA of many other countries. Company is setting up two more manufacturing facilities in India, one for regulated markets and another for domestic and rest of the world markets. For more details please visit our website www.ajantapharma.com