Exhibit 99.1
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
| | | | | | | | |
| Contact: | | Adam C. Derbyshire | | Mike Freeman | | | | |
| | Senior Vice President and | | Executive Director, Investor Relations and | | | | |
| | Chief Financial Officer | | Corporate Communications | | | | |
| | 919-862-1000 | | 919-862-1000 | | | | |
SALIX COMMENCES PATENT INFRINGEMENT LITIGATION
AGAINST NOVEL LABORATORIES
RALEIGH, N.C.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SLXP—News) today announced that Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Norgine, B.V. and Norgine Europe, B. V. have filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey against Novel Laboratories, Inc. for infringement of Norgine’s patent protecting MOVIPREP® (PEG 3350, sodium sulfate, sodium chloride, potassium chloride, sodium ascorbate and ascorbic acid for oral solution). Norgine licensed MOVIPREP to Salix for commercialization in the United States.
The lawsuit is in response to an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) filed by Novel with the US Food and Drug Administration regarding Novel’s intent to market a generic version of MOVIPREP in the United States prior to the September 1, 2024 expiration of U.S. patent #7,169,381.
Salix and Norgine have full confidence in the intellectual property rights that protect MOVIPREP. Moreover, Salix and Norgine intend to use all reasonable means at their disposal to continue to vigorously defend and enforce the intellectual property rights protecting MOVIPREP.
About Norgine
Norgine, headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, is a privately-owned, European specialty pharmaceutical company, developing and marketing pharmaceutical products in the therapeutic areas of gastroenterology, hepatology and pain management. Norgine is a leader in this sector in Europe, with a balanced sales presence across all major EU markets. The company has over 1,000 employees and sales in 2007 were approximately $350 million.
About Salix
Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd., headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, develops and markets prescription pharmaceutical products for the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases. Salix’s strategy is to in-license late-stage or marketed proprietary therapeutic drugs, complete any required development and regulatory submission of these products, and market them through the Company’s gastroenterology specialty sales and marketing team.
Salix trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “SLXP.”
For more information please visit our web site atwww.salix.com. Information on our web site is not incorporated in our SEC filings.
Please Note: The materials provided herein contain projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events. Such statements are just predictions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual events or results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, among others: the possible impairment of, or inability to obtain, intellectual property rights and the costs of obtaining such rights from third parties; generic and other competition; our need to return to profitability; the high cost and uncertainty of the research, clinical trials and other development activities involving pharmaceutical products; the unpredictability of the duration and results of regulatory review of New Drug Applications and Investigational NDAs; market acceptance for approved products and the need to acquire new products. The reader is referred to the documents that the Company files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
