Glaxo was defending its Paxil, an antidepressant, against a challenge from generic drug maker Apotex .
Canadian generic firm Apotex says it is planning to launch a knockoff no later than 2005.
To hold on to it, Dolan cut a deal meant to keep Apotex at bay.
One week later, generic drug company Apotex contacted Watson seeking a deal for the exclusive generic Provigil rights.
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Instead, Apotex took advantage of the fine print to launch its generic anyway--without the threat of substantial penalties.
Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis are in the midst of a legal fight with Apotex to protect Plavix's patent.
Apotex, the privately held generic drugmaker that is making the knockoff, said that Plavix generics hit the market today.
Then came the disastrous deal with Apotex, in which that company's chief executive publicly crowed that he had outsmarted Dolan.
Even if Apotex does bring a version of Paxil to market, that may not spell doom for the Paxil franchise.
Sales have been halted for now as the companies battle in court to determine if Apotex can sell its generic version.
The two drug giants had tried to settle with Apotex to delay the entry of a generic, but the settlement was scuttled.
For legal reasons, the Food and Drug Administration will not grant final approval to Apotex's generic before Sept. 19 of this year.
Apotex Corporation, Aurobindo Pharma, Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Roxane Laboratories, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Torrent Pharmaceuticals have received approval for 75 mg clopidogrel.
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Batito was clear that Apotex wouldn't sell the drug again in Canada after filling the government's order until legally allowed to do so.
Anticipating a court ruling in its favour, Apotex , a Canadian pharmaceutical firm, introduced a generic version of a bestselling drug, Plavix .
Bristol-Myers Squibb's board ousted Chief Executive PeterDolanPeter Dolan and General Counsel RichardWillardRichard Willard over their handling of negotiations with Apotex, a Canadian generic drugmaker.
"We think it would be pretty risky for Apotex to launch in advance of this decision, " says Catherine Arnold, European pharmaceuticals analyst for Sanford Bernstein.
In return, Apotex would launch a generic in 2011, eight months before a key patent actually expired but years after a generic might have become available.
Bristol-Myers Squibb 's board ousted Chief Executive Peter Dolan and General Counsel Richard Willard over their handling of negotiations with Apotex, a Canadian generic drugmaker.
Into July 2009, Apotex continued to press Watson for a deal, indicating at one point through an email that Apotex had previously been in touch with FTC about generic Provigil.
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Peter Dolan lost his job as Bristol's chief executive over the botched negotiation that allowed Canadian drugmaker Apotex to launch a generic version of Plavix at almost no financial risk.
Initially, a court argued that Apotex's generic didn't run afoul of Glaxo's patents because some of the clinical trials done to test the drug essentially put it in the public domain.
Today a federal New York judge ruled that the patent on Plavix is still valid and said Sanofi (Plavix's inventor) was entitled to an injunction to keep Apotex from launching a copycat.
The American and French pharmaceutical companies, which are thought to be considering a merger, saw sales of their co-marketed drug suffer last summer when Apotex, which is based in Canada, introduced a generic rival.
That price would be as low as the price Canada was getting from Toronto-based drug maker Apotex , which has also pledged to deliver its generic ciprofloxacin faster than Bayer, according to Apotex spokesman Elie Batito.
Ontario, Canada-based generic firm Apotex was able to launch a generic version of the heart pill Plavix, Bristol's top drug, because during negotiations Bristol-Myers inexplicably gave away its rights to triple damages should its patent prevail at trial.
"This victory is a strong confirmation of what we have been arguing since 1998: Our generic version of Paxil does not infringe any valid patents and therefore should be available to consumers today, " said Apotex Chief Executive Barry Sherman in a prepared statement.
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