Drug Makers Seek to Halt Generic

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Sanofi-Aventis said Monday that they filed for an injunction against Apotex Corp. to stop the Canadian drug maker from selling a less expensive, generic version of blood thinner Plavix and force it to recall product already sold.

The companies also said they had begun discounting Plavix to stem the loss of market share.

A hearing on the motion is set for Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, where the request for the injunction was filed and a patent case on Plavix is pending.

Plavix is a Sanofi-Aventis medicine that Bristol-Myers markets in the United States, and several other countries.

In the filing, the two brand-name makers gave four reasons for an injunction, including the likelihood that they would prevail in the patent case and that Apotex’s launch last week was causing them irreparable harm.

Apotex launched the drug Aug. 8 after a settlement agreement to end the years-old patent litigation fell apart. The generic drug, clopidogrel bisulfate, costs about $124 for 30 tablets, compared with about $148 for the Bristol-Myers-branded version.

New York-based Bristol-Myers and Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis allege that Apotex has flooded the market with generic Plavix, selling customers several months’ supply. The firms said that because Apotex’s launch was so large, any injunction that didn’t include a provision for a recall would not give them meaningful financial relief because they would still have to compete with what is left in the market.

The companies said they would give large rebates to companies that continued to buy Plavix. Bristol-Myers declined to give information about the rebates’ size.