After a two-year legal battle, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories has won the right to sell a cheaper version of a best-selling opioid addiction treatment in the U.S., according to Bloomberg.
Dr. Reddy's can now sell a generic version of Suboxone Film. The court victory will bring generic versions of the treatment into the U.S. four years sooner than expected and help reduce the price of a drug that can cost about $500 per month.
Suboxone Film was developed by Indivior, which has hiked the price of the drug four times since 2016. The twice-a-day treatment costs $8.56 a dose.
Dr. Reddy's version began selling last month at $6.33 per dose. Analysts expect prices to drop as much as 70 percent.
The legal battle between Dr. Reddy's and Indivior, which began selling the treatment in August 2016, centers on whether Dr. Reddy's version of Suboxone Film violates a patent.
In June 2018, despite the patent dispute, Dr. Reddy's launched the product in stores, but had to halt sales about a month later. In February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Dr. Reddy's could resume sales, saying that Dr. Reddy's was likely to win its patent case.