One of Novo Nordisk's (NYSE:NVO) US patents for its blockbuster weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy will be reviewed by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) after it was questioned by generic drugmaker Mylan Pharmaceuticals, which had two other petitions over the drugs rejected earlier in the week.
Mylan wants to make generic versions of the drugs.
The USPTO's appeal board said that Mylan had shown a "reasonable likelihood" that Novo's patent covering dosage regimes for the drugs, named 10,335,462, was "unpatentable".
A USPTO panel of experts will now determine whether the patent is valid.
Earlier in the week, Mylan was turned down by the USPTO over its questioning of two other Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) patents covering the diabetes and weight-loss drugs' active ingredient, semaglutide.
Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) "will vigorously defend the company’s intellectual property on this matter”, a company spokesperson said in an email. “Since the dispute in ongoing, we cannot comment further.”