Tag: commercial speech

Gavel surrounded by piles of money.

3 Challenges to Patents on Therapeutic Monoclonal Antibodies

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Gregory Curfman

Three new developments — two based on litigation and one based on a federal statute — may have significant effects on pharmaceutical manufacturers’ use of patents to fend off competition and maintain high prices for therapeutic monoclonal antibodies.

Highly specific monoclonal antibodies have played an increasingly important role as precision therapies for a growing number of diseases, including malignant, cardiovascular, and inflammatory conditions. As therapies derived from research and development, therapeutic monoclonal antibodies may be — and usually are — patented, providing manufacturers with protection from competition and the prospect of high revenues.

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Hundred dollar bills rolled up in a pill bottle

AbbVie Wins First Round in Humira Antitrust Lawsuit

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Ryan Knox and Gregory Curfman

Since receiving FDA approval for Humira® (adalimumab) in 2002, AbbVie, the drug’s manufacturer, has filed hundreds of submissions to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for secondary patents – almost half of which were filed after 2014, just two years before the expiration of its core patent.

These patents were largely directed to methods of use and potential formulation changes, but they did not include claims that affect the clinical efficacy of the biologic, which is used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and psoriasis, among other conditions. Instead, the purpose of the secondary patent filings was to assemble a thicket of patents, 132 in all, to prohibit competition from biosimilar companies.

And so far, the strategy has worked. AbbVie remains the sole U.S. manufacturer of the biologic, and has successfully defended its domain: in June 2020, a federal district court judge in Chicago dismissed an antitrust lawsuit against AbbVie.

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