By Aaron Katsman
In a much anticipated decsion, a U.S. District court for New Jersey denied a Novartis(NVS) motion for a preliminary injunction against Teva(TEVA) selling its generic version of Lotrel, a blood pressure treatment drug. In reaching its opinion, the court found that Novartis was not likely to succeed in its allegations of patent infringement, Teva said. Teva announced that they will resume shipping their generic version immediately. Sales of Lotrel were approximately $1.4 billion in the U.S. This is no small victory for TEVA. Analysts think that this drug can add between $180-$210 million to sales or about 9-12 cents a share, and coupled with the rest of the pipeline, Teva looks poised to be a market leader for some time. As I posted a few weeks ago, the feeling was that Teva would win the case, and indeed they did. This clearly is another in a long line of blows that have been dealt to Big-Pharma, a trend that I expect to continue for the foreseeable future.
Disclosure: Author’s fund is long TEVA as of 6/11/07.
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Aaron Katsman is the lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.
About Aaron Katsman
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