Back and forth – This time Lilly wins
Yesterday Lilly (NYSE:LLY) put one in the win column as they announced “the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California ruled in Lilly’s favor, vacating a temporary restraining order and denying a request by Amylin Pharmaceuticals for a preliminary injunction that sought to impose restrictions on the Lilly Diabetes sales force and other relief. Amylin recently filed litigation involving the two companies’ diabetes collaboration agreement.”
Commenting on the ruling Amylin (NASDAQ:AMLN) stated; “We are disappointed by the Court’s decision not to issue a preliminary injunction, which Amylin requested to prevent Lilly from proceeding with its plans to use the same sales force to sell both exenatide and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH’s competing drug, linagliptin. Amylin continues to believe that Lilly’s conduct violates our diabetes collaboration agreements, is anti-competitive and limits patients’ treatment options. It is important to note that the Court’s decision did not make any findings on the merits of our claims, but merely declines to award injunctive relief, based on the conclusion that monetary damages would be sufficient. We intend to vigorously pursue the litigation to enforce our legal and contractual rights.” (Highlighting added by Diabetic Investor)
So here we are just two weeks away from the most important diabetes conference of the year and these two companies which are supposed to be working together continue to duel in court. While Diabetic Investor always looks forward to the ADA’s annual conference this year should be particularly interesting given the current situation between Lilly and Amylin. Considering the growing animosity between the two companies we could see the first all-out cage match on the show floor. It should surprise no one if instead of their traditional booths Lilly and Amylin set up a boxing ring instead.
To make things even more interesting Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) and Sanofi Aventis (NYSE:SNY) could set up a tout board, set odds on the matches and take action from conference attendees. Talk about creating interest and buzz on the show floor.
The truly sad part here is that time and money is being wasted on this court fight and the only winners here will be the lawyers. The longer Lilly and Amylin duke it out in court, rather than try to settle their dispute in a professional and civilized manner, the worse this situation will become. The honest truth here is that both parties share and equal amount of blame for creating this mess. They also, should they choose to do so, would benefit greatly if they concentrated on getting Bydureon to market and helping it become the mega-blockbuster it has the potential to be.
The harsh reality here is that this fight has nothing to do with whom harmed who and who did what to whom, this fight is about one thing and one thing only; money. It’s about time the two sides acknowledged this fact, started acting like adults and get on with the business at hand. The longer this goes on in court the worse things will become and ultimately millions of patients will end up being the real losers here.
