Late last month, a federal court refused to block copies of Acorda’s biggest-selling drug Ampyra leading up to a patent appeal decision. So the New York drugmaker took matters into its own hands.
Acorda has struck a settlement pact with generics giant Mylan that could hold off Ampyra knockoffs in the U.S. until sometime in 2025. Under the agreement, Mylan can still launch its copy earlier under certain circumstances, but the companies aren't saying just what those circumstances are.
Acorda has also struck a deal with Teva that keeps its Ampyra generics at bay for the rest of this month, and potentially until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit hands down a decision on the four patents under re-review. And Acorda made arrangements with Hikma that’ll last until it gets a Federal Circuit ruling, too.
"While the details of the agreements are confidential, reaching agreements with these parties was important to avoid confusion for patients and to keep an orderly playing field at least for now, and possibly until a decision is reached," an Acorda spokeswoman said by email.
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In the wake of a disastrous patent decision last April that forced more than 100 layoffs for the company, Acorda is hoping to preserve sales of the drug for multiple sclerosis patients—at the very least, until it can launch forthcoming Parkinson’s treatment Inbrija, for which it’s expecting an FDA verdict by October.
Last week, the Ardsley-based pharma said Ampyra had generated $150.3 million in this year’s second quarter, and its management reiterated a prediction that the drug would rake in between $330 million and $350 million for the year.
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Win or lose the appeal, though, CEO Ron Cohen doesn’t expect to let any reps go. Acorda will put the Ampyra field force directly on the Inbrija job as part of a “1-to-1 transition,” he said in a June interview.
On the other hand, if Acorda can bring its nixed patents back to life, its sales ranks will swell “by roughly 35% or so,” Cohen said, to account for, “those places in the country where there was not a geographic overlap in certain prescribers.”