LONDON-- GlaxoSmithKline PLC has scored a minor victory in the
battle to keep sales of its $9 billion-a-year asthma treatment
Advair from being lost to generic competitors.
The company has obtained a preliminary injunction to prevent
Sandoz--the generic-drug division of Novartis AG--from selling its
rival inhaler AirFluSal Forspiro in Germany, because of its color.
The Cologne regional court made the ruling.
Sandoz developed the AirFluSal Forspiro inhaler in collaboration
with British firm Vectura Group PLC. It contains the same active
ingredients as Advair. The inhaler received its first European
approval in December and has now been approved in seven European
countries and launched in Denmark and Germany.
The injunction, which was granted on Feb. 6, is based on unfair
competition grounds because the inhaler is the same color purple as
Advair, which is also marketed under the names Seretide and
Viani.
Glaxo says it believes customers recognize the color purple as
indicating its own product and Forspiro's appearance could lead to
confusion among patients, pharmacists and health-care
providers.
The arrival of generic competitors is expected to lead to
declining sales of Advair from this year onward. Last year Advair
sales grew 4% to reach GBP5.27 billion ($8.69 billion), of which
GBP1.46 billion were in Europe. Sales are forecast to fall 10% in
Europe this year, according to Credit Suisse analysts.
But while AirFluSal Forspiro is a generic copy of Advair,
pharmacists must dispense Advair when a doctor specifies it on a
prescription. That gives Glaxo's product a level of protection
against declining sales.
Advair lost patent protection in most of Europe last year. But
the way the inhaler works--taking two asthma drugs in dry powder
form and delivering them in an inhaled combination into the
lungs--has proved hard to copy.
The injunction doesn't relate to patent rights, and Glaxo said
it wasn't opposing the market entry of a medicine with the same
active drug combination as Advair, which is approved to treat
asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Sandoz said via email that it had received the preliminary
injunction but would vigorously oppose it "to ensure that patients
suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Germany
have access to this patient-friendly inhaler." The AirFluSal
Forspiro inhaler won a product-design award in 2011.
Vectura declined to comment.
Write to Hester Plumridge at Hester.Plumridge@wsj.com
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