A US court has ordered SmithKline Beecham to stop selling the varicella zoster chicken pox vaccine in the US and Canada for the next three years.
Merck & Co, the biggest drug maker in the US, sued SmithKline Beecham, the second biggest maker of vaccines worldwide, in the Delaware Chancery Court, claiming Merck & Co had obtained an exclusive licence from the University of Osaka in Japan to market the vaccine in the US and Canada until 2005.
Merck declared in its suit that SmithKline was intending to breach the agreement splitting the worldwide rights to the vaccine between different territories and had applied for regulatory approval to sell the product in the US and Canada.
In his judgment delivered on August 15 after two-and-half years of litigation, William Chandler, chief judge of Delaware Chancery Court, ruled that SmithKline should be barred from selling the drug in the US and Canada for three years from the date the company receives permission from regulators to do so.
SmithKline Beecham are considering an appeal. However, Rick Koenig, a spokesman for the company in Philadelphia, said it was premature to say when a decision to appeal or not would be made.
