Eyes of the world on case concerning best-ever-selling drug

14 January 2017

No company makes more money from a drug than US pharma major AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) does from its arthritis treatment Humira (adalimumab), but how long that will go on for could be determined by a UK court case starting on Monday.

The trial pits AbbVie, which attempted to stop the proceedings taking place, as the defendant and the holder of a number of patents relating to Humira, against the claimants, Japan’s Fujifilm Kyowa Kirin Biologics (FKB) and South Korean drug developer Samsung Bioepis, a joint venture between Korean conglomerate Samsung and US biotech Biogen (Nasdaq: BIIB).

The latter two companies are seeking to clear the way of secondary patents so that, upon expiry of Humira’s basic patent in October 2018, they will be able to launch biosimilar versions of the drug, which has been approved to treat rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and psoriasis, and achieved net sales in 2015 in excess of $14 billion.

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