There’s nothing like patent litigation to bring out the best in big pharma. The latest example is contained in a filing today by Amgen, which won a patent battle with Roche last October - a jury decided Roche’s new Mircera anemia drug violated Amgen patents. Roche recently offered to pay Amgen a royalty so it can sell Mircera in the US, even though FDA approval was already granted.

Specifically, Roche is willing to sell Mircera for about 5 percent less than what Amgen charges for its Aranesp medication and pay a royalty of 20 percent on US net sales for the duration of Amgen’s patents. At the time the offer was made, Roche indicated that US District Court Judge William Young asked the drugmaker to make a proposal.

Amgen isn’t buying it: “With all the sincerity of a snake-oil salesman, Roche hyped its infringing product as a purportedly ‘new’ medicine conferring a different medical benefit, whose market entry would increase choice, drive down prices, and save the government and taxpayers billions of dollars,” Amgen writes. “But Roche’s own documents show that the needs of patients, and their doctors, suffering from anemia associated with chronic renal failure are already satisfied by currently available ESAs and that its infringing product delivers at best ‘non-inferior’ or ‘comparable’ results.

“Moreover, its internal forecasts reveal a truth starkly different from its tale of lowering prices and reducing taxes — namely a scheme in which Roche will maintain a high price to the government in order to fund discounts and rebates which it intends to use in order to take share from Amgen.” (See page four of the complete document).

A key question is what Roche will do if it remains unable to market Mircera? If the drug was factored into internal sales projections, well, you know…

Hat tip to the WSJ Health blog