The postman may always ring twice, but Lionel Vial, as a seasoned post-writing man, always rings three times. Here is thus his third foray into the Truvada® litigation.
As our faithful readers surely remember, there have already been two rounds in the Truvada® litigation in France (reported here and here). For the less faithful readers, here is a short reminder.
Truvada® (Gilead) is an anti-HIV drug comprised of the combination of tenofovir disoproxyl fumarate (TDF) and emtricitabine (FTC) approved for Pre-exposure Prophylaxy (PreP) of HIV infection, since it has been shown to allow for a reduction of 86% of the risk of being infected by HIV.
Truvada® was covered until 25 July 2017 by European patent EP 0915894. The effects of the patent have been extended by supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) expiring between 21 and 24 February 2020 depending on the countries.
The SPCs are based on European Union marketing authorization EU/1/04/305/001 and on claim 27 of the basic patent, which reads as follows:
A pharmaceutical composition comprising a compound according to any one of claims 1-25 [N.B. tenofovir disoproxil is claimed in claim 25] together with a pharmaceutical carrier and optionally other therapeutic ingredients. (Emphasis added).
The essential question repeatedly asked to the French courts was whether the use of the expression “other therapeutic ingredients” to refer to emtricitabine (FTC) is indeed sufficient to protect the TDF/FTC combination pursuant to Article 3(a) of Regulation (EC) No. 469/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council (i.e. the SPC regulation).
Round one saw the rejection, on 5 September 2017, of Gilead’s request for a preliminary injunction under urgency proceedings to prohibit the sale of Mylan’s generic, because the SPC was considered “in all likelihood invalid” by the French judge in charge of the case.
Round two saw the Paris Tribunal de Grande Instance confirm this preliminary ruling by invalidating the SPC on 25 May 2018.
Which brings us to round three, which took place before the Paris Cour d’Appel.
In our previous post on the subject, we had expressed the thought that there was not much suspense left, especially in view of the opinion of the Advocate General (AG) of the CJEU delivered on April 25, 2018 in the then pending case C-121/17, relating to the corresponding UK SPC, and according to which it would not have been obvious to a person skilled in the art that the active ingredient emtricitabine was specifically and precisely identifiable in the wording of the claims of that patent.
Referral C-121/17 yielded a decision on 25 July 2018:
Article 3(a) of Regulation No 469/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009, concerning the supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products, 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:
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- 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.” (emphasis added)
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Let’s see what the Cour d’Appel made of it in its decision handed down on 19 June 2020:
The court, which studied the consultations and scientific articles submitted by the parties, retains that if it is not contested that the person skilled in the art knew that for treating HIV a therapy combining several active principles was more effective than a mono-therapy, nothing establishes that in 1996 the person skilled in the art, given the the general state of its knowledge, necessarily and specifically thought of emtricitabine to combine it to TD upon reading claim 27 which is drafted in very general terms.
The [first instance] judgement will be therefore confirmed in that it retained that no functional formula necessarily and specifically related to emtricitabine and that consequently the combination of the two products TD and emtricitabine could not be made the subject of an SPC on the basis of the EP 894 patent […]” (emphasis added)
Thus, not much suspense indeed, as round three also ends in a knock-down. Time to throw in the towel?
CASE REFERENCE: Cour d’appel de Paris, pôle 5 chambre 2, June 19, 2020, Gilead Sciences Inc. et al. v. SASU Mylan, RG No. 18/15906.
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