Let me first start by wishing that all readers are safe and well, in these exceptional and difficult times.
As so many of us have to remain home all day in the foreseeable future, with the dreadful pandemic newsfeed as a main distraction, I said to myself, what better way to take my mind off it than to write about… a pharma case?
And so, here is an update on the Inegy® patent dispute (judgment kindly provided by Denis Schertenleib).
One year ago, Lionel Vial and I reported on a preliminary injunction ordered against Mylan due to the likely infringement of SPC FR05C0040 owned by Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. (MSD).
In that post, we expressed some surprise at the decision since, back in April 2018, a judge in charge of emergency interim proceedings had refused to issue a preliminary injunction against another generic drug company, Biogaran, based on the same SPC, because the latter was considered likely invalid, which was confirmed on appeal on June 26, 2018 (see this post).
We wondered whether there was thus a new, more patentee-friendly trend in France with respect to preliminary injunctions in general and pharma patent litigation in particular, which is why the March 2019 post was entitled The new normal.
But now, we seem to be back to the old normal, as the Cour d’appel has overturned the preliminary injunction, and effectively re-raised the bar for pharma patent holders.
As a reminder, Inegy® is a combination of ezetimibe and simvastatin, which is prescribed for reducing cholesterol levels.
Ezetimibe reduces intestinal absorption of cholesterol while simvastatin (belonging to the family of statins) is an HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor which inhibits cholesterol biosynthesis.
MSD’s SPC protecting Inegy® is based on European patent EP0720599 (EP’599) for the product “ezetimibe optionally in the form of its pharmaceutical acceptable salts in combination with simvastatin”.
EP’599 specifically claims:
- a very broad family of compounds in claim 1 (in the form of a Markush formula);
- ezetimibe as a specific compound in dependent claim 8; and
- a pharmaceutical composition for the treatment or prevention of atherosclerosis, or for the reduction of plasma cholesterol levels, comprising an effective amount of the above compounds, alone or in combination with a cholesterol biosynthesis inhibitor selected from the group consisting of lovastatin, pravastatin, fluvastatin, simvastatin, CI-981, DMP-565, L-659,699, squalestatin 1 and NB598, in a pharmaceutical acceptable carrier (claim 17).
On October 17, 2017, Mylan initiated nullity proceedings, to which MSD responded by requesting, on November 30, 2018, that a preliminary injunction to stop selling Mylan’s ezetimibe/simvastatin combination and to pay provisional damages be issued against Mylan.
On March 7, 2019, the judge in charge of case management (JME) granted the preliminary injunction. Mylan appealed, and the JME’s judgment has now been overturned by the Paris Cour d’appel on February 14, 2020.
Like in first instance, Mylan argued that the SPC was invalid because:
- It was granted for a combination which is not protected as such by the basic patent, in breach of Article 3(a) of the SPC regulation (No. 469/2009), since it does not form the core inventive advance of the patent, which is centered on ezetimibe, in particular in the absence of any research conducted on the ezetimibe/simvastatin combination.
- The product protected by the basic patent was already the subject of a certificate (i.e. SPC FR03C0028 granted for ezetimibe) in breach of Article 3(c) of the SPC regulation.
- As is usual in SPC-related cases, the court analyzed the relevant case law from the CJEU. But the court interpreted the Gilead decision (C-121/17, Teva UK Ltd. et al. vs. Gilead Sciences Inc.) differently from the JME at first instance.
According to Gilead:
Article 3(a) of [the SPC regulation] must be interpreted as meaning that a product composed of several active ingredients with a combined effect is ‘protected by a basic patent in force’ within the meaning of that provision where, even if the combination of active ingredients of which that product is composed is not expressly mentioned in the claims of the basic patent, those claims relate necessarily and specifically to that combination. For that purpose, from the point of view of a person skilled in the art and on the basis of the prior art at the filing date or priority date of the basic patent:
– the combination of those active ingredients must necessarily, in the light of the description and drawings of that patent, fall under the invention covered by that patent, and
– each of those active ingredients must be specifically identifiable, in the light of all the information disclosed by that patent.
The Cour d’appel held that the conditions of Gilead are not automatically met merely because the claims of the patent explicitly mention the active ingredients of the combination product. Something more is required.
The court insisted on the the link between the claimed combination and the technical problem at stake, based in particular on reason 48 of Gilead, which reads: “it is necessary to ascertain whether a person skilled in the art can understand without any doubt, on the basis of their general knowledge and in the light of the description and drawings of the invention in the basic patent, that the product to which the claims of the basic patent relate is a specification required for the solution of the technical problem disclosed by that patent“.
The court also turned to earlier decisions of the CJEU, namely Sanofi (C-443/12, Actavis Group PTC EHF & Actavis UK Ltd v. Sanofi) and Boehringer (C-577/13, Actavis Group PTC EHF & Actavis UK Ltd v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG) and found that the facts of the present case are similar to those of these earlier decisions.
Here is the court’s summary of Mylan’s key argumentation:
Mylan argues that the basic patent lists a large number of products, namely all known cholesterol-lowering products to be combined with the new active compound ezetimibe, that it does not contain any information on the specific effects of these combinations, and in particular the one associating ezetimibe with simvastatin, and that this combination is therefore not a product distinct from ezetimibe alone, for which the patentee has already obtained an SPC, which would make it possible for them to prohibit the sale of ezetimibe combined with any other product, so that the [SPC] is likely invalid.
And here is the summary of MSD’s rebuttal:
MSD argues that [the expressly designated] composition of ezetimibe and simvastatin necessarily pertains to the invention for the skilled person, in keeping with Gilead. They add that this combination product is not a mere juxtaposition of two known active substances; it effectively makes it possible to solve the technical problem stated in the patent, namely the development of more effective drugs in the treatment and prevention of atherosclerosis, avoiding side effects, in view of the complementary modes of action of ezetimibe and simvastatin; and that this is a second invention of the EP’599 patent, covered by this patent under article 3(a) of the regulation, so that this case is different from Sanofi and Boehringer. They add that the combination product of ezetimibe and simvastatin has not given rise to an SPC under article 3(c) of the regulation yet, that several products can be protected as such by a basic patent, and that the condition of article 3(c) is also met so that the SPC is valid.
In summary of the summaries: for MSD, there are two inventions in the basic patent, namely ezetimibe on its own, and the combination of ezetimibe with other complementary drugs such as simvastatin; for Mylan, the patent is only about ezetimibe itself.
In order to decide between these two propositions, the court looked at the structure of the basic patent, and at the nature of the combined effect of the two active substances.
Concerning the structure of the patent, the court noted that the summary of the invention primarily focuses on the class of compounds to which ezetimibe belongs. And then:
[…] The next paragraphs 15 to 17 which disclose product compositions and notably the association of a hydroxy substituted azetidinone and a cholesterol biosynthesis inhibitor are introduced by the following wording: “in still another aspect, the present invention relates to a pharmaceutical composition” or “the present invention also relates to”, so that the skilled person could consider the combination […] as being another “aspect” of the invention relating to hydroxy substituted azetidinones, and not a distinct invention.
That sounds like a fair point, but on the other hand, it should scare the hell out of all patent drafters that an apparently innocuous choice of wording can have such dramatic consequences more than 25 years after the patent was drafted.
Concerning the “combined effect” of the active substances (an expression used at paragraph 53 of the reasons of Gilead), the court noted the following:
MSD states in its submissions that the “combined effect” under Gilead of the association of ezetimibe and simvastatin lies in the fact of not having to administer the maximum dose of statin and reducing the risk of side effects. This is not mentioned in the patent, which indifferently mentions that the effect of both hydroxy substituted azetidinones alone and their combination with a cholesterol biosynthesis inhibitor is the “treatment and prevention of atherosclerosis”. Therefore, the skilled person, who knew from the prior art that it was possible to combine two anti-cholesterol substances having different modes of action […] and who knew statins and especially simvastatin, in use since the end of the 80s for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia, would not consider that this combination is a distinct product of the patent (in the absence of any indication at the filing date as to the combined effect of ezetimibe and simvastatin, and the results from later research not having to be taken into account) […].
Consequently, the court seems to consider that, in order for a combo drug to be considered as distinct from a mono drug in a patent, this needs to be stated in the patent itself, and there must be a specific effect for the combination disclosed in the patent.
It remains an open question whether a mere mention of a specific combined effect would suffice or whether the combined effect would have to be plausible at the filing date (by analogy with the requirements of sufficiency of disclosure).
The above will probably be controversial enough, but an additional point made by the court, after concluding that the validity of the SPC was seriously challenged, may be even more controversial. To wit:
At any rate, the proportionality of the measures ordered at first instance is not justified in view of the respective interests relating to originator and generic drugs having obtained marketing authorizations. A financial harm cannot be seen as non-repairable or even poorly repairable, as long as it can later be cured by a damages award, unless under exceptional circumstances which are not justified in the present case, as the SPC at stake expired on April 2, 2019, i.e. less than two months after the preliminary injunction order.
Just like in the latest post on this blog (in the context of telecom SEP litigation), the proportionality principle has thus been emphasized by the court, which seems to be a tendency on the rise. And just like in this other case, the fact that the expiry date of the IP at stake was nigh was a factor taken into account in the proportionality assessment.
This must be very worrying for originators, as preliminary injunctions have been a powerful deterrent for competitors, and as there are concerns that damages may never completely compensate for the competitive advantage gained by generic drug companies launching before expiry.
The case on the merits is probably going on in parallel, so we will probably get further updates on this case.
As a final note, a very similar decision was issued on the same day, with Sandoz instead of Mylan as the generic defendant.
CASE REFERENCE: Cour d’appel de Paris, pôle 5 chambre 2, February 14, 2020, SAS Mylan v. Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. & SAS MSD France, RG No. 19/06114.
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