MIRCETTE DEAL FINALIZED WITH ORGANON, SAVIENT
Barr Pharmaceuticals has finalized an agreement with Organon and Savient Pharmaceuticals
to acquire the exclusive rights to the oral contraceptive Mircette.
Under the terms of the deal, which was first announced in September, Organon
and Savient have agreed to sell Barr the rights to Mircette (desogestrel/ethinyl
estradiol) and terminate their ongoing patent litigation regarding Barr's generic
version of the contraceptive drug. Barr plans to promote Mircette through its
Duramed Pharmaceuticals subsidiary, which recently expanded its specialty sales
force.
The agreement ends a drawn out patent dispute that had bounced from district
court to appeals court and back since 2001. Savient and Organon first sued Duramed
Pharmaceuticals, which originally applied to market generic Mircette, but Barr
became the target of the suit after acquiring Duramed. The U.S. District Court
for the District of New Jersey originally ruled in favor of Barr in 2001, but
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sent the case back to the
lower court for further review in 2003.
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