Pfizer has won approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for a six-month paediatric exclusivity extension for its Lyrica product, its top-selling medicine. The approval followed trials with paediatric epilepsy patients. The decision means Pfizer can expect to earn about half the $3.5bn it made from Lyrica in the US last year. But the approval came as Pfizer lost a UK legal case in which the Supreme Court decided its neuropathic pain patent claims about Lyrica were invalid. In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Dr David Colquhoun, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, said that while he was not surprised by Pfizer's decision, there had been no evidence so far
Pfizer has won approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for a six-month paediatric exclusivity extension for its Lyrica product, its top-selling medicine. The approval followed trials with paediatric epilepsy patients. The decision means Pfizer can expect to earn about half the $3.5bn it made from Lyrica in the US last year. But the approval came as Pfizer lost a UK legal case in which the Supreme Court decided its neuropathic pain patent claims about Lyrica were invalid. The NHS could seek to recover up to £500m ($640m) from the company as a result of the judgment.