Actavis launches generic Olanzapine on ‘day one’ in four European countries

Published: 2011-06-16

On 5 May 2011, Actavis Group, Zug, Switzerland—the world’s fourth largest generic pharmaceutical company—launched Olanzapine tablets in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Spain, immediately after the patent expired on 24 April, the previous month.

Olanzapine is the generic equivalent of Eli Lilly’s brand product Zyprexa. It is used in the treatment of schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder. The product is currently launched in two forms by Actavis; as film-coated tablets in Bulgaria, orodispersible tablets in Hungary and Slovakia, and in both forms in Spain.

Olanzapine Actavis was developed at Actavis’s R & D site in Hafnarfjordur, Iceland, and produced at the company’s manufacturing site in Malta.

Actavis launched Olanzapine in Germany in September 2007, after a German patent court ruled that Eli Lilly’s patent was invalid, making the launch of a generic version possible. In other European countries, the patents for Olanzapine will, in most cases, expire in September 2011.

Source: www.gabionline.net