Ontario hospital sued by Bayer

From the National Post:
A major pharmaceutical company has taken the unusual step of suing an Ontario hospital for patent infringement, alleging the institution effectively duplicated a patented Bayer Inc. antibiotic by diluting a more concentrated, generic version of the same drug.

The case is an extraordinary example of the lengths to which pharmaceutical companies will go to defend their intellectual property - and is likely to succeed in court, said medical and patent-law experts. However, the lawsuit may well backfire on the public relations front, they predicted.

"I think this is going to look, from Bayer's point of view, pretty petty," said Joel Lexchin, an emergency doctor and health policy professor at Toronto's York University.

The hospital is probably doing this for a small number of patients, costing Bayer almost zilch in terms of lost sales. If this drives up hospital costs, Bayer, I don't think, would look very good." ...more