HC restrains Glenmark from selling anti-diabetes medicines

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday restrained Mumbai-based Glenmark Pharmaceuticals from manufacturing and selling its medicines, Zita and Zita-Met, for treatment of type-2 diabetes on the ground of infringement of the invention of US drug major Merck Sharp & Dohme, which enjoys patent rights of the generic drug formulation.

Deciding a civil suit filed by Merck Sharp & Dohme, the Bench of Justice A.K. Pathak issued a decree of permanent injunction restraining Glenmark Pharmaceuticals from “making, using, selling, distributing, advertising, exporting, offering for sale or dealing” in Sitagliptin Phosphate Monohydrate salt.

The defendant was also restrained from using any other salt of Sitagliptin in any form, alone or in combination with one or more other drugs, which the Court said would infringe the plaintiff’s patent as its competitor.

Merck Sharp & Dohme would be entitled to actual costs of the proceedings, said the Court, while observing that no issue with regard to damages was framed in the case and it did not find it justifiable to quantify the amount of damages on the basis of figures of sales and profits earned by the defendant.

A Division Bench of the High Court had earlier restrained Glenmark from making or selling its drug through an interim order, but had allowed it to sell the medicines already supplied to the market.

However, Wednesday’s judgment did not make any observation about the sale of the existing stock.

Merck Sharp & Dohme had sought injunction against Glenmark contending that the Indian pharmaceutical company had violated its intellectual property right over its anti-diabetes medicines, Januvia and Janumet, by selling drugs containing the same salts.

Glenmark argued that its salt was different from that used by the US pharma major and the latter had no patent right over this salt.

The defendant also raised arguments about public interest, which were rejected by the court with the observation that the salt invented by Merck Sharp & Dohme improves efficient management of the condition of a patient suffering from type-2 diabetes by inhibiting an enzyme.

It was contended that the company had violated intellectual property right over an American firm’s anti-diabetes medicines