Actavis brings generic Zyprexa to further 11 markets; misses out on buying Polfa

Iceland-headquartered generic drugmaker Actavis Group last week started marketing olanzapine tablets, a copy version of US drug major Eli Lilly’s (NYSE: LLY) blockbuster schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder drug Zyprexa, in Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden and the UK, immediately after the patents expired on September 26 and 27, respectively.

Olanzapine is launched in two forms by Actavis, as conventional film coated tablets and as orodispersible tablets, developed by the firm’s R&D in Iceland and the tablets are produced at the company's manufacturing site in Malta.

Actavis was able to market olanzapine in Germany in 2007-2008, following a ruling by a German Patent Court that made the launch of a generic version possible. Olanzapine has already been launched by Actavis in a number of European countries, including Bulgaria, Czech, Hungary, Iceland, Malta, Slovakia and Spain. Annual branded sales of Zyprexa were about 4.5 billion euros ($6.08 billion0 globally for 12 months ending June 2011 according to IMS data quoted by Actavis.