Press Release
June 28, 2012

Teva Achieves Major Trial Victory as Goodwin Litigators Defend Copaxone Patent

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on June 22 ruled in favor of Goodwin Procter clients Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA and Teva Neuroscience in a significant patent litigation involving Teva’s brand product, Copaxone®.

The court ruled that Teva’s nine patents were valid, enforceable and infringed by the proposed generic products of defendants Sandoz/Momenta Pharmaceuticals and Mylan/Natco Pharma. Goodwin Procter litigators, together with attorneys from co-counsel Kenyon & Kenyon, tried the case before Judge Barbara Jones in two bench trials in July and September of last year. In its nearly 280-page opinion, the court adopted virtually all of Teva’s positions and found that all 22 of the asserted patent claims were infringed.

The litigation relates to Teva’s largest product, the blockbuster multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone®, which Teva has sold in the United States since 1997. Copaxone® is the most prescribed treatment for relapse remitting multiple sclerosis (“RRMS”), the most common form of multiple sclerosis.

In 2007, defendants Sandoz and Momenta Pharmaceuticals submitted an abbreviated new drug application (“ANDA”) seeking FDA approval to market a generic version of Copaxone®. Likewise, Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Mylan and Natco Pharma submitted their ANDA in 2009. Teva, along with patent owner Yeda Research and Development Co., filed patent infringement actions against each set of defendants, which were ultimately consolidated.

The defendants had raised a number of invalidity, unenforceability and non-infringement defenses. The court held a six-day bench trial on the issue of inequitable conduct in July 2011, and tried all remaining issues in a 10-day bench trial in September 2011. In its opinion and order, the court found that the defendants infringed every asserted claim of Teva’s nine patents and that none of the asserted claims were invalid or unenforceable.

The Goodwin trial team, which was led by David Hashmall, included Daryl Wiesen, Henry Dinger .