Ranbaxy ends patent dispute with GlaxHimangshu Watts

MUMBAI: Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd has won 180 days of exclusive rights to sell a generic form of GlaxoSmithKline’s Valtrex in the United States after resolving a patent row, sending its shares up as much as 10% on Thursday.

The country’s biggest drug maker by sales expected strong gains after resolving the patent litigation with Glaxo, and also expected to win similar exclusive rights for at least one drug every year for the next four years, chief executive officer Malvinder Singh said.

“There is a very big upside. It is a $1.3 billion product today and growing at the rate of 20%,” Singh said of Valtrex, which is used to treat herpes infections.

Ranbaxy received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February for valacyclovir hydrochloride, the active ingredient of Valtrex. It will launch the drug in the U.S. market in late 2009.

Market exclusivity, given to the drug maker that is the first to file a challenge to a U.S. patent, gives lucrative margins to the generics firm and has boosted earnings of firms like Ranbaxy and rival Dr Reddy’s Laboratories.

Singh said Ranbaxy, which has challenged 20 patents in the United States, had a very strong position in some litigation and was open to resolving disputes the way it did with Glaxo. “I’m certainly open to settlement as a way forward. We need to identify ways to monetise these opportunities,” Singh said by telephone from New Delhi.

He also said the company was confident it would exceed its outlook for 20% revenue growth in 2007.

“This year, clearly we are exceeding that guidance,” he said. Ranbaxy’s shares closed 9.5% higher at Rs 373.4 after rising as much as 10.1% during trade. It was their biggest single-day gain in over a year.

Singh said he was not perturbed by a Spanish court’s ruling on Wednesday that upheld Pfizer Inc’s patent covering an active ingredient in its cholesterol-fighter Lipitor.

“That’s a very small basic thing,” he said, adding the company would appeal against the ruling.