WASHINGTON - Johnson & Johnson's Cordis unit sued Abbott Laboratories for the fourth time this year over a patent on drug-coated heart stents, in a bid to stop the introduction of a competing device.
The suit claims Abbott's Xience coated stent would infringe a patent for a way of using rapamycin or related medicines on the devices to prevent growth of scar tissue in arteries that have been cleared of fat. Rapamycin, also known as sirolimus, is used to coat J&J's Cypher stent. The Xience uses everolimus, which J&J says is a related drug.
Food and Drug Administration staff on Tuesday said that Xience is effective and safer than older devices, including Boston Scientific Corp.'s Taxus. Cypher and Taxus are the only two drug-coated stents now on the US market. An FDA panel is scheduled to meet today to see if Xience should be recommended for approval.
"Upon its launch in the United States, the Xience V stent will compete directly with Cordis's Cypher stent, reducing Cordis's market share, impairing customer good will, and causing irreparable harm to Cordis," New Brunswick, N.J., Jersey-based J&J said in the complaint.
Abbott, based in Abbott Park, Ill., could take a large share of sales from Taxus and Cypher if approved. The market for drug-coated stents shrank 40 percent this year, to about $2 billion, on concern the devices carry more risk for clots than bare-metal stents.
Cordis filed the suit in federal court in Trenton, N.J., Tuesday, the same day it obtained the patent for using drugs to coat stents.
In a related action, Natick-based Boston Scientific sued Cordis to challenge the patent. Boston Scientific sells Xience in Europe as Promus and if Abbott's device is approved by the FDA, it can sell Promus in the United States as well.
"We believe we don't infringe the Cordis patent and we believe the Cordis patent is invalid," said Paul Donovan, spokesman for Boston Scientific.
