Glaxo Loses Challenge to Teva’s Generic Drug

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. may keep selling a low-cost version of Relafen after a U.S. appeals court upheld a ruling that invalidated a GlaxoSmithKline patent on the anti-inflammatory drug.

Teva began selling a generic version of the drug, which generated $265 million a year for Middlesex, England-based Glaxo, in August 2001, after a federal judge invalidated the patent for the drug’s active ingredient, nabumetone.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the judge correctly ruled that the name and chemical composition of nabumetone were revealed in a 1973 article, almost a decade before Glaxo predecessor SmithKline Beecham sought patent protection.