Roche agrees to conditions for Mircera release

BASEL, Switzerland Roche Holding has agreed to the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts’ conditions in an attempt to gets its anemia drug Mircera on the market, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Last year, a jury concluded that Mircera infringed on numerous patents protecting Amgen’s anemia drugs Aranesp and Epogen. Then, last month the court issued a preliminary injunction but said it might consider allowing Mircera on the market if Roche agreed to some conditions.

One of those conditions states that, Roche will pay Amgen a royalty of 22.5 percent on sales of Mircera, instead of the 20 percent Roche had been willing to pay. Also, Roche agreed to set Mircera’s price at or below Epogen’s for the remainder of the patents that Amgen holds.

According to IMS Health, Aranesp had U.S. sales of $3.2 billion last year and Epogen had sales of $3.1 billion.