Legal Wrangle Over RU-486 In USA

NeoGen Investors has filed a defamation suit against Hollywood, USA industrialist Burt Sugarman and his Giant Group, claiming they have slandered and defamed Joseph Pike, NeoGen's founder, to try to force him to give up the rights to the abortion pill mifepristone (also known as RU-486). Mr Pike holds US manufacturing and distribution rights to the product.

Giant further says it invested $6 million in the marketing effort. Last month, Giant Group subsidiary KCC Delaware sued Mr Pike and accused him of hiding his criminal past when he was negotiating the $6 million deal. NeoGen claims that the KCC suit has left Mr Pike and his family open to threats from antiabortion groups; its suit further states that Giant did not pay any money and that an exclusive agreement with NeoGen expired at the end of September. A Giant spokesman said that the money was not due until mifepristone was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The nonprofit Population Council, to which mifepristone's developer Roussel Uclaf transferred US patent rights, has subleased its rights to several companies, including NeoGen. The Council, saying it would not have given NeoGen rights had it known that Mr Pike was disbarred in North Carolina in 1993 for forgery and fraud in a real estate deal, has asked for a court order to force Mr Pike to give up control of companies that make the pill in the USA. The Council says that this abortifacient has a possible $100 million market in the USA.