The Supreme Court has rejected F. Hoffman La Roche's petition to stop Cipla from marketing and selling Erlocip, the generic version of its lung and pancreatic cancer drug, Tarceva.

Earlier, rejecting the arguments advanced by Roche's lawyers, Mr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Mr. Parag P. Tripathi, the Delhi High Court had held that Cipla has raised a serious doubt as to whether Roche in fact hold a patent for the product sold as Tarceva, and that they have been unsuccessful at making out a prima facie case in their favour for grant of an order restraining the defendant from marketing Erlocip.

Accepting the arguments of Senior Counsel Arun Jaitley, the Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Ajit Prakash and Justice Muralidhar, observed that the question of general public access in our country to life saving drugs assumes great significance. The adverse impact on such access which a grant of injunction is likely to have would have to be accounted for. Imposing costs of Rs. 5 lakh on Roche, the Court made it clear that the judgement was not to influence the decision of the Single Judge deciding the civil suit.  

In an appeal prepared by Partner Pravin Anand of Anand & Anand against the order, Senior Counsels T.R. Andhiarjuna and Rohinton Nariman were engaged to appear on behalf of Roche. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and refused to intervene in the matter. Senior Counsel Mr. Harish Salve appeared on behalf of Cipla, briefed by Ms. Pratibha Singh of Singh & Singh, Advocates.  

Cipla also recently emerged a victor when the Delhi High Court dismissed Bayer's plea to restrain the Drug Controller General of India from granting a licence to Cipla for the manufacture, sale and distribution of the drug 'soranib'.