US District Judge Gregory Sleet in Delaware ruled on 5 January 2015 to invalidate four of Cubist Pharmaceuticals (Cubist)’s patents for its blockbuster drug Cubicin, an intravenous antibiotic used to treat skin and blood infections.

The judge ruled that the ’967, ’689, ’238 and ’342 patents protecting Cubicin were all invalid, either due to anticipation in prior scientific knowledge or because they were obvious. These four patents would have protected Cubicin from generics competition until November 2020. Cubist has already granted Teva Pharmaceutical Industries a license to market a generic version in 2018 as part of an earlier patent settlement.

The judge did, however, uphold Cubist’s RE’071 patent on Cubicin, which is set to expire in June 2016. This decision was praised by the company, which said that this ‘will prohibit Hospira from entering the market until June 15, 2016’. Cubist also stated that it disagrees with the court’s decision on the other patents and will be appealing the decision.

The litigation arose from Hospira’s attempt to sell a generic version of Cubicin, arguing that certain Cubist patents for the drug were not valid, and which triggered Cubist to file a patent-infringement lawsuit against Hospira back in 2012.

The news comes in the wake of the announcement by pharma giant Merck on 8 December 2014, that it had agreed to buy Cubist for US$8.4 billion in cash or US$102 per Cubist share. This deal ‘is unaffected’ according to Cubist, who expect it to ‘move forward toward its completion in the first quarter of 2015’.

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