Janssen, Mylan settle patent fight on contraceptive

Janssen Pharmaceuticals has again temporarily wrestled to the ground another potential generics competitor to its Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo contraceptive.

Mylan ($MYL) said today that it and partner Famy Care had settled litigation over the birth control pills and that they would begin producing generics of the drug on Dec. 31, 2015, if not before.

Janssen has similar agreements with other generics producers for the contraceptive, which had sales of $424.5 million for the 12 months that ended Sept. 30, according to IMS Health. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a unit of Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ), settled on similar terms with Watson Pharmaceuticals ($WPI) earlier this year and Novartis ($NVS) before that.

In 2009, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries ($TEVA) agreed to quit making a generic in exchange for a royalty, and the understanding that it would return to the market with its copycat at the end of 2015. It will be met there with a lot of competition.

- here's the release