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Purdue and Endo Settle Oxycontin Patent Case

Endo Pharmaceuticals announced today that it has reached an agreement with The Purdue Frederick Company settling a long-standing patent infringement case concerning Endo's generic equivalent to Oxycontin, sold by Purdue.

The case was on remand to the district court after the Federal Circuit ruled in February that further fact finding was required to balance the evidence of materiality and intent in determining whether Purdue engaged in inequitable conduct in procuring its Oxycontin patents.  The Federal Circuit's February ruling came on a petition for rehearing filed by Purdue, and vacated the court's June 2005 ruling, which upheld the district court's finding of inequitable conduct.

According to Endo's press release, Endo will continue selling its generic Oxycontin until December 31, 2006.  Endo did not state whether any sales after that date would be permitted.  Endo had launched its generic version in June 2005 in light of the CAFC's decision that month.

The settlement agreement has been submitted for review to the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, as required by statute.

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One response to “Purdue and Endo Settle Oxycontin Patent Case”

  1. HBS student Avatar
    HBS student

    Just did a case study on this in a class at Harvard Business School. I was pretty disgusted by the whole proceedings by Endo. In my opinion, they basically tried to infringe on the OxyContin patent, and sued Purdue without even having any evidence of patent invalidity. They lucked upon the clinical data deception only after a year of research.
    I was happy to hear that ultimately, Purdue kept their patent and Endo learned their lesson never to pursue paragraph 4 litigation ever again.
    Pharma companies should definitely focus on creating innovation and patents, and not on infringing them.

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