Natco Pharma, one of the few Indian companies to venture into new drug discovery research, jumped on Friday after the United States Patent and Trademark Office (the PTO) issued a final office action rejecting Teva's application seeking a reissue of U.S. Patent No. 5,800,808 (808 Patent), which was found to be invalid by the court of appeals for the Federal Circuit in July 2013.
''The final rejection issued today finds the first claim of the reissue application, which is identical to the only claim in the '808 Patent, to be indefinite and both claims of the reissue application to be unpatentable based on obvious-type double patenting. In its ruling, the PTO refused to extend patent protection on Copaxone(R) past the patents that will expire in May 2014,'' Natco said.
Shares of the company are trading at Rs 755.30, up Rs 42.45, or 5.95% at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Friday at 1:02 p.m.
The scrip has touched an intra-day high of Rs 795 and low of Rs 740. The total volume of shares traded at the BSE is 85,925.
In the earlier session, the shares lost 0.24%, or Rs 1.69, at Rs 712.85. Currently, the stock is trading down 13.88% from its 52-week high of Rs 877 and above 93.67% over the 52-week low of Rs 390.