Argentum Pharmaceuticals Succeeds in Starting Patent Cancellation Trial Against UCB's VIMPAT®

NEW YORK, May 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) granted Argentum Pharmaceuticals LLC's petition for inter partes review (IPR) against all claims of the sole remaining patent listed as covering UCB Inc.'s VIMPAT^® (lacosamide) drug in the Food & Drug Administration's Orange Book.  The PTO concluded that Argentum has established a "reasonable likelihood that it would prevail in showing that claims 1-13 of the '551 patent [U.S. Patent RE 38,551] are unpatentable."  The decision marks the beginning of an IPR trial that will be conducted by three specialist patent judges within the PTO's Patent Trial & Appeal Board.  A final decision on patentability in the IPR is due within 1 year.

In addition to Argentum's instituted IPR, Argentum also filed an ex parte reexamination request against this same patent that raises additional grounds of unpatentability than those in the IPR.  A decision by the PTO on Argentum's reexamination request is due no later than July 29, 2016.

Unlike today's successful institution of Argentum's IPR petition, a prior IPR petition filed by a group of generic companies against this same patent was denied in January 2015.  Those companies were Actavis, Inc., Actavis Laboratories FL, Inc., Actavis Pharma, Inc., Amneal Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Amneal Pharmaceuticals of New York, LLC, Aurobindo Pharma Ltd., Aurobindo Pharma USA, Inc., Breckenridge Pharmaceutical, Inc., Vennoot Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Sandoz Inc., Sun Pharma Global FZE, and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd.

About Argentum Pharmaceuticals

Argentum is a generic drug company with core competencies in intellectual property and pharmaceutical operations. By working with branded and generic pharmaceutical companies and healthcare payors, Argentum intends to reduce the overall cost of prescription drugs by challenging patents that are not innovative and which artificially support high drug prices.  http://www.argentumpharmaceuticals.com

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SOURCE Argentum Pharmaceuticals

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