AstraZeneca has granted Actavis a head start in the race to cash in on the loss of US market exclusivity of Crestor (rosuvastatin calcium), its top-selling drug, in 2016. The latter had been attempting to bypass the usual process of generic market entry by threatening to launch a similar, but not substitutable, version of rosuvastatin, forcing AstraZeneca to argue patent infringement in the courts to defend its top-selling product.
Actavis will now be allowed to launch a substitutable generic version of the product 67 days before Crestor's exclusivity expires...
