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The preliminary injunction on Friday came days after Indivior issued
a profit warning that hammered its stock as the company said the
drug, Suboxone Film, was rapidly losing market share in the United
States.
A U.S. district court determined that Dr.Reddy's Laboratories likely
infringed on Indivior's patent and blocked the Indian pharmaceutical
company from re-launching its drug until the patent litigation is
over.
Shares in Indivior topped the UK mid-cap index, gaining back most of
the near 1 billion pounds in market value the stock lost last week.
Dr.Reddy's shares fell more than 9 percent on India's National Stock
Exchange.
Brokerage Jefferies said it expects an outcome for the patent
litigation in mid-2020, or in about 4-6 months if Dr. Reddy's
appeals the decision.
"We expect this will be a huge boost to sentiment and underlines the
strength in Indivior's IP (intellectual property) in our view."
Dr.Reddy's and U.S. drugmaker Mylan received approval last month
from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to launch generic
versions of Suboxone, and Indivior won a temporary restraining order
blocking Dr. Reddy's from selling its Suboxone copy.
However, the copycat's launch hit Suboxone's market share, which
dropped by two-and-a-half percentage points to 52 percent, Indivior
said last week.
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Suboxone Film generates 80 percent of Indivior's revenue and helps
drug users beat their addiction to heroin and is dissolved under the
tongue.
Generic rivals in tablet form are already in the U.S. market, which
is grappling with an opioid addiction epidemic that killed 33,000
people in 2015.
Indivior said in June it would consider a potential launch of its
own generic product if Dr. Reddy's launched a copycat version.
The company's contingency plans would also focus on optimizing the
launch of Sublocade, a once-a-month injectable drug to suppress
opioid craving, launched in the United States in February.
However, Indivior cut its revenue expectations from Sublocade last
week, saying it was experiencing "some friction" in the new
distribution and reimbursement model for the drug, making doctors
less willing to prescribe the new drug at higher price levels.
(Reporting by Sangameswaran S and Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru;
Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)
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