25 June 2019
EPAM Successfully Defended Finnish Pharmaceutical Company Orion Corporation in a Patent Dispute

The Firm’s attorneys continue to successfully defend the patent rights of major international pharmaceutical companies. This is the fourth pharmaceutical manufacturer (along with Novartis, Bayer, and BMS) that successfully sought legal redress in the Intellectual Property Court thanks to the Firm’s team.

Orion Corporation and other world leaders in the pharmaceutical industry faced unfair competition on the part of a Russian manufacturer that was producing unauthorized copies of patented pharmaceutical drugs. In particular, there was a threat of infringement of Orion Corporation’s exclusive rights to the invention “Pharmaceutical Solutions of Levosimendan” in the Simdax drug which is used to treat acute cardiac failure. Orion Corporation who manufactures Simdax was bound to file a suit seeking the cessation of the generic drug’s production.

However, both the trial court and the court of appeals disagreed with Orion Corporation’s position and dismissed its lawsuit, arguing that the Russian manufacturer was not infringing upon the patent. The courts also declined to conduct a forensic examination, instead choosing to evaluate the produced evidence on their own.  

At the stage of cassation proceedings, Orion Corporation sought legal assistance from EPAM. Attorneys of the Firm’s litigation and arbitration practice succeeded in getting the judgments set aside; the Intellectual Property Court remanded the case for further proceedings to the trial court. 

This is already the fourth victory for EPAM in a series of large pharmaceutical patent disputes against mala fide market players.

Orion Corporation was represented by Partners Valery Eremenko and Dmitry Dyakin, counsels Vera Rikhterman and Pavel Sadovsky, associate Maxim Burda and junior associates Stepan Abramov and Vladimir Rodionov.

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