Reports: Otsuka can block Apotex's generic version of Abilify

NEW YORK — Drug maker Otsuka Pharmaceuticals can keep generic versions of its schizophrenia drug off the market, according to published reports.

Bloomberg reported that the Supreme Court upheld a ruling that allowed Otsuka to block Canadian generic drug maker Apotex from marketing a version of the antipsychotic Abilify (aripiprazole), which Otsuka co-markets with Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Apotex attempted to argue that because any person with the right skills could create a version of Abilify's active ingredient sufficiently identical to the original, and that the ingredient belonged to a class of drugs that had existed since the early 1980s. But the high court upheld a ruling in a lower court rejecting those claims.

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