Lilly shares rise on favorable UK court Alimta ruling

Shares of US pharma major Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) rose 4.4% to $85.92 yesterday, after the company announced that it had received a positive UK court ruling on the patent for its blockbuster cancer drug Alimta (pemetrexed disodium), which last year generated sales of $2.8 billion.

The Court of Appeal has ruled that the Alimta vitamin regimen patent would be indirectly infringed by a generic competitor that had stated its intent to market certain alternative salt forms of pemetrexed in the UK prior to the UK patent's expiration in June 2021.

Specifically, the Court of Appeal held that commercialization of these alternative salt forms in the products as proposed would constitute indirect infringement by supplying an essential means for putting the patented invention into effect. The decision came in the case of Actavis v Eli Lilly and Company.