The Madras High Court has rejected a Letters Rogatory (a request for international judicial assistance) issued by the district court of Delaware in the United States for securing oral and documentary evidence from a Chengalpattu based pharmaceutical company in connection with a patent dispute between Pfizer and Cipla.
A Division Bench of Justices G. Jayachandran and Mummineni Sudheer Kumar held that the Letters Rogatory isued by the US court on May 13, 2024 could not be honoured since Article 23 of the Hague Convention permits signatory countries to refuse requests that were in the nature of pre-trial discovery of evidence.
The judges pointed out that Pfizer, a popular American pharma company, had instituted a civil suit before the district court of Delaware against Indian pharma majors Cipla and Zenara for alleged infringement of its patent with respect to the drug Vyndamax used for treating transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy.
Cipla and Zenara had entered into a contract with Softgel Healthcare Private Limited, located at Kelambakkam-Vandalur Road in Pudupakkam village, for manufacturing their drug and hence, Pfizer had obtained the Letters Rogatory from the Delaware court to record the evidence of the Chengalpattu based pharma company.
