Looming Trial on Intercept’s Only Drug Hangs on Patent Validity

Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc. needs only to convince a federal judge that four patents for its rare liver disease treatment Ocaliva are valid in order to win a trial next week.

Apotex Inc. agreed that, based on the court’s construction of four terms in the surviving patent claims, its proposed copy of Intercept’s only drug—the US sales of which provided nearly three-quarters of its revenue—infringes the patents, according to a stipulation and order that Judge Maryellen Noreika approved Wednesday in the US District Court for the District of Delaware.

Any successful appeal by Apotex of the court’s construction of the disputed ...