Abbott sues Johnson & Johnson to block arthritis drug Simponi

Abbott Laboratories, maker of the rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira, sued Johnson & Johnson's Centocor unit to prevent it from introducing a competing medicine for the crippling disease.

Abbott contends that Centocor's new drug, to be sold under the brand name Simponi, would infringe a patent it owns that was issued in 2007. Abbott, based in Abbott Park, Illinois, wants cash and an order that would prevent further use of its invention.

Centocor is "making meaningful preparations" to sell Simponi and thus is "engaged in activities that infringe" the patent, Abbott said in the complaint, filed May 1 in federal court in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week said it had given approval to sell the medicine, whose chemical name is golimumab. The drug, to be co-marketed outside the U.S. by Schering-Plough Corp., will compete with Humira and Amgen Inc.'s Enbrel.

Humira is Abbott's biggest drug, with $4.5 billion in 2008 global sales. Centocor and New York University sued Abbott last year, claiming they were entitled to patent royalties on Humira. That case is pending in federal court in Marshall, Texas.

Annual sales of golimumab will exceed $1 billion a year, Jeff Jonas, an analyst for Gabelli & Co. in Rye, New York, said last month.

Spinal Arthritis

Golimumab was also approved for use against ankylosing spondylitis, a progressive form of spinal arthritis, and psoriatic arthritis, a form of arthritis often associated with the skin condition psoriasis.

J&J, based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, will sell the drug in the U.S. Schering-Plough, of Kenilworth, New Jersey, will sell it in most countries outside the U.S.

Like Enbrel, Humira, and J&J's Remicade, the new product works by blocking TNF, or tumor necrosis factor, a germ-fighting protein that also can cause the inflammation found in rheumatoid arthritis patients.

About 1.3 million people in the U.S. have rheumatoid arthritis, according to The Arthritis Society, an Atlanta-based nonprofit group. The disease can cause long-term joint damage, resulting in chronic pain and loss of movement.

The case is Abbott Biotechnology Ltd. v. Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc., 09cv40089, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (Worcester).