J&J, Lupin Agree Erleada Copy Won’t Infringe Cancer Drug Patent

Lupin Ltd.’s proposed copy of Johnson & Johnson’s Erleada is made using a process that doesn’t infringe a patent for the increasingly lucrative prostate cancer treatment, according to a deal approved Monday in federal court.

J&J’s Aragon Pharmaceuticals Inc. and the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, a co-plaintiff, jointly hold US Patent No. 9,481,663, which covers crystalline forms of a molecule essential to prostate cancer treatment. The patent, issued in November 2016, expires in June 2033, according to the US Food and Drug Administration’s registry of approved drugs, the Orange Book.

The stipulated order and judgment of noninfringement, ...