Pfizer, Ranbaxy lock horns over Caduet

Ranbaxy Laboratories on Tuesday stood firm on its strategy of challenging patents, even as Pfizer has filed a suit against it to block the Gurgaon-based firm from going ahead with plans for a generic form of cholesterol and blood pressure medicine, Caduet.

"Our strategy on litigations is a considered strategy, where we bring to bear our innovative R&D capabilities to develop generic alternative and litigate against patents, which are weak in our opinion. We challenge them based on the fact that we believe, after due consideration and careful study, they are invalid or not infringed," a company spokesperson said reacting to the latest bout between the two companies.

Ranbaxy had filed an abbreviated new drug application under Para IV with the USFDA seeking approval to sell a low-cost version of Caduet, which combines Pfizer's blood pressure drug Norvasc with the cholesterol treatment Lipitor, the world's best-selling

medicine.

If granted, the company would get a 180 day exclusive marketing rights in the US market. Caduet had received US Food and Drug Administration's approval in January 2004 and sales of the drug were reported to be $370 million last year.

Last week, Pfizer had filed a complaint in a US federal court stating the copy would infringe patents that expire in 2010 and 2018.

Exuding confidence over its move, the Ranbaxy spokesperson said the company respected patents but when non-infringing products were developed such efforts must be rewarded.

Ranbaxy and Pfizer are locked in many patent battles, the most significant of them being over Lipitor, the anti-cholesterol drug.