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Johnson & Johnson plans to Arbitrate Remicade Rights With Schering-Plough

By Amarendra Bhushan for CEOWORLD Magazine Updated:May 21, 2009

Johnson & Johnson plans to arbitrate whether it may terminate its agreement with Schering-Plough Corp. and take control of sales for the rheumatoid arthritis treatment Remicade.

J&J notified Schering-Plough on May 5 that it plans to use the arbitration proceedings to try to end the agreement to share Remicade sales because of the proposed acquisition of Schering- Plough by Merck & Co. Bloomberg reported.

- Schering-Plough years ago acquired the rights to Remicade and another arthritis treatment, golimumab, from diversified healthcare company Johnson & Johnson, which sells Remicade in the United States.

- Merck’s acquisition of Schering-Plough is structured as a so-called “reverse merger,” Merck has said the Remicade partnership would be unchanged.

- Remicade, used to treat arthritis, as well as, Crohn’s disease, generated about $2.1 billion in sales in 2008.

REMICADE is a medicine that affects your immune system. REMICADE can lower the ability of your immune system to fight infections. Serious infections have happened in patients receiving REMICADE. These infections include tuberculosis (TB) and infections caused by viruses, fungi or bacteria that have spread throughout the body.

What is REMICADE?

REMICADE is a prescription medicine that is approved for patients with:

- Rheumatoid Arthritis-adults with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis, along with the medicine methotrexate

- Crohn’s Disease-children over the age of 6 and adults with Crohn’s disease who have not responded well enough to other medicines

- Ankylosing Spondylitis

- Psoriatic Arthritis

- Plaque Psoriasis-adult patients with plaque psoriasis that is chronic (doesn’t go away) severe, extensive, and/or disabling

- Ulcerative Colitis-adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis who have not responded well enough to other medicines

REMICADE blocks the action of a protein in your body called tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha). TNF-alpha is made by your body’s immune system. People with certain diseases have too much TNF-alpha that can cause the immune system to attack normal healthy parts of the body. REMICADE can block the damage caused by too much TNF-alpha.

What are the ingredients in REMICADE?

The active ingredient is Infliximab.
The inactive ingredients in REMICADE include: sucrose, polysorbate 80, monobasic sodium phosphate monohydrate, and dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate. No preservatives are present.

REMICADE is an advanced treatment that has been shown to have substantial benefits in patients with a number of inflammatory disorders involving the immune system.

REMICADE targets specific proteins in the body’s immune system to help control the development of inflammation, significantly reducing painful symptoms in diseases such as plaque psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, adult Crohn’s disease, pediatric Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and ankylosing spondylitis.

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