The orphan drug Kuvan is used to bring down phenylalanine levels in patients with the blood disorder phenylketonuria (PKU), which is thought to affect 50,000 patients in the US and Europe.
The US patents cover stable and once-daily tablet formulations of the drug in the US until 2024 and 2025, extending its market exclusivity period that had been due to expire in 2014.
The awards are good news for BioMarin; particularly given that sales of the Kuvan for the quarter ended June 30 leapt 41 per cent to $17m (€12m) thanks, according to company CFO Jeff cooper, to “new patients initiating therapy”
While Kuvan was not BioMarin’s best seller in the period, it did make a significant contribution to the total $82.8m revenue of the product sales generated over the three months.
Profit fall 66% on costs
Despite these gains BioMarin’s profit for the quarter was down, plummets 66 per cent to $1.3m from $3.8million from the comparable period last year.
BioMarin attributed that the decline was due to rising operating costs, which jumped nearly $20m to just short of $79m.
The firm said that key factors included a $5.3m hike in administrative costs, a $3.2m drop in interest income and a $2.5m rise in R&D spending.
