Lundbeck infringement action against escitalopram generics in Spain is dismissed

In a judgment issued last month, Spain’s Barcelona Commercial Court Number 4 rejected the infringement and unfair competition actions brought by Danish drugmaker Lundbeck (LUND: DC) against several companies selling generic escitalopram medicaments in Spain.

Lundbeck is the holder of Patent EP347.066 - ES2.986.891 and Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) 200200019 derived from it, which claims a certain manufacturing process for the active ingredient escitalopram. Escitalopram is an anti-depressant sold by Lundbeck under the trademark Cipralex.

Explaining the background, law firm Gray & Angulo said that Lundbeck filed a claim against various companies (Cinfa, Normon, Sandoz, Ratiopharm, Stada, Actavis, Kern, Milo and Cantabria) based on the alleged infringement of its patent/SPC. Lundbeck argued that the defendants' generic products contained escitalopram manufactured using its patented process, and not exclusively by the process they had declared (a process of Indian company Dr Reddy's, which falls out of the scope of Lundbeck's patent). To support this argument, Lundbeck argued that: