French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis loses patent lawsuit in S. Korea

SEOUL, Oct. 20 (Yonhap) -- French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis SA has lost a legal battle with a local company Boryung Pharmaceutical Co. over its treatment for colorectal cancer, the South Korean company said Monday.

The Supreme Court in a ruling last week dismissed an appeal from Sanofi to
nullify patents obtained by Boryung for its generic drug for colorectal cancer.
The court ruled that Boryung didn't infringe on a Sanofi patent related to the
cancer drug, according to officials at the South Korean pharmaceutical company.
Boryung has "finally won the two-and-a-half-year court battle with the
multinational drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis," a company official said.
In October last year, Boryung introduced the generic drug, called Oxaliplatin
liquid medicine, for the first time in the world after a lower court ruled in
favor of the local company.
Generic drugs usually sell for lower prices than brand-name medicines as they can
be made after patent protection of the original brand expires.
Multinational drugmakers such as Sanofi have allegedly been accused of trying to
ban sales of generic drugs by winning new patents for their branded medicines.
The Supreme Court ruling was the latest embarrassment for Sanofi in South Korea.
In June, Sanofi was ordered by the nation's drug safety agency to recall its
top-selling heparin drug after finding an unspecified amount of impure material
in the product.
At that time, the Korea Food and Drug Administration ordered Sanofi to recall
14,364 units of the blood-thinner medicine, which is sold as Clexane in South
Korea and widely sold as Lovenox in Europe and other nations.
Officials at Sanofi's Korean unit weren't immediately available for comment.
(END)