Alvotech takes Ab­b­Vie to court over al­leged patent 'mine­field' sur­round­ing megablock­buster Hu­mi­ra

Ab­b­Vie has so far been suc­cess­ful in shoo­ing away com­pe­ti­tion to its megablock­buster Hu­mi­ra, de­ploy­ing a num­ber of patents and set­tle­ments to keep biosim­i­lars off the US mar­ket un­til 2023. But one Ice­landic drug­mak­er doesn’t want to wait — and on Tues­day, it filed a law­suit chal­leng­ing what it called a patent “mine­field.”

Alvotech has ac­cused Ab­b­Vie of try­ing to “over­whelm” and “in­tim­i­date” it with “an out­ra­geous num­ber of patents of du­bi­ous va­lid­i­ty,” ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments. The com­pa­ny is cur­rent­ly seek­ing ap­proval for its Hu­mi­ra copy­cat AVT02, which Ab­b­Vie says would in­fringe up­on 62 patents.

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