Finding that that Netupitant 300 mg and Palonosetron 0.5 mg, supplied together in a single combipack, prima facie infringed claims, the Delhi High Court has restrained Intas and persons acting on its behalf from dealing in “NO-CINV” or other products infringing the suit patent until the next hearing.
The Court noted that Intas knew of the patent but had not instituted proceedings challenging its validity before manufacturing and launching the product. This circumstance weighed heavily against it at the ad-interim stage. Further, the contention that combining two known substances lacked novelty required detailed examination of the patent specification, claims, Controller’s orders and supporting material. The Court declined to determine that issue at the first urgent hearing.
Briefly, Helsinn Healthcare SA and its exclusive licensee sued Intas Pharmaceutical Limited for allegedly infringing Indian Patent No. 426553, covering an oral combination of Netupitant and Palonosetron for treating chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. The plaintiffs market their formulation as “AKYNZEO” and alleged that Intas’s “NO-CINV”, containing separate tablets of Netupitant 300 mg and Palonosetron 0.5 mg in a combipack, infringed Claims 1 to 4 of the patent. Intas stated that it had already launched the product on November 7, 2026, and sought time to respond before an injunction was considered.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora observed that noted that the plaintiffs had approached it promptly and that the invoices produced by Intas showed business-to-business sales, with the actual scale of the launch requiring further examination. The Court found infringement prima facie evident and noted that it was not contested during arguments. Following the reasoning in the Hetero matter, it observed that supplying the two ingredients as separate tablets in a single combipack did not, at this stage, take the product outside the patented combination.
Intas argued that combining two known substances lacked novelty. The Court noted that Intas had launched the product without first challenging the patent or “clearing the way”, despite knowing of its grant. However, it did not finally decide patent validity, that question required examination of the specification, claims, Controller’s orders and supporting material after pleadings were exchanged. The Court also clarified that the earlier dismissal of Zydus’s writ petition was on territorial jurisdiction, not on the merits of patent validity.
