We are pleased to report our successful defence for Novartis AG in revocation proceedings brought by Accord Healthcare Limited in the English Patents Court. The case concerned Novartis’ European Patent (UK) No. 1 467 728 B1 and supplementary protection certificate SPC/GB16/025, which relate to Novartis’ Entresto^® medicine.

Mr Justice Meade rejected Accord’s attacks against the patent, including classical obviousness over two items of prior art, obviousness based on an allegation of mere collocation, obviousness for lack of technical contribution over two items of prior art and lack of plausibility. He also rejected a challenge to the validity of the SPC based on Article 3(a) and 3(b) of the SPC Regulation, and found that Accord’s generic product would infringe the SPC, if marketed.

The team at Bristows assisting Novartis were Brian Cordery, Katie Cambrook, Kate O’Sullivan, Jonathan Ross, Ben Reeves, Fariha Chowdhury, Sze-Von Lam and Lalya Camara.

The full judgment is available here(opens in new tab).