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Thursday, April 14, 2005

Ind. Decisions - Lilly patent decision expected at 4:50 p.m. Indy time

The South Florida Business Journal is reporting here:

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana put the time Judge Richard Young is to render his decision at 5:50 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time. The case is Eli Lilly and Co. v. Zenith Goldline Pharmaceuticals (Ivax), et al.
[More] A story just posted on the Indianapolis Star website includes this speculation:
In a decision seen as favorable to Lilly, the [Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit] vacated an earlier decision by a court panel, which declared a patent invalid for the antidepressant Paxil because that drug had been given to patients in a clinical trial before the patent was applied for.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard L. Young, who presided over the 2004 nonjury trial involving Zyprexa's patent, might be influenced by the appeals court's ruling as he considers a similar claim in the case over Lilly's No. 1 drug.

The three generic drug firms challenging the Zyprexa patent, which runs until 2011, claim the patent was essentially disclosed by the "public use" of Zyprexa in an early clinical trial.

One possible reason Young waited nearly 15 months before issuing his ruling was to see how the appeals court ruled in the Paxil case, said Gary D. Street, a Cincinnati patent attorney who tracked the 12-day Zyprexa trial last year for Wall Street investment firms.

"Since he (Young) was ready to go (with his decision) so soon after that (Paxil) decision, I'm pretty sure that was what he was sitting there waiting on," Street said.

The Star story also reports:
Young has said he will release his long-awaited decision at 4:50 p.m. today on the court's Web site.
That IS newsworthy, as the SD Ind. is normally very slow in posting its opinions - posting is selective and cases normally are several weeks to more than a month old before posting, if at all. Here is the main page for the SD Indiana, and here is the page where the various judges' opinions are posted. The judges are in alphabetical order; scroll down almost to the end for Judge Young, who has not posted many decisions in the past.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 14, 2005 12:03 PM
Posted to Ind Fed D.Ct. Decisions