Lasco Distributors who won the case against Pfizer for damages resulting from an injunction preventing Lasco from selling Salts of Las Amlodipine in Jamaica from 2005 until 2014 is awarded J$155,738 for disposal of inventories.  
The major part of the claim, that of loss of profit, is to be computed and presented on the November 24. The court awarded interest to be computed at a rate of 8.23 percent from 2005 to 2017 on the disposal of the inventory at the time the injunction was made.
Medimpex has been awarded US$77,000 to be converted at the rate of J$69.06 to the US dollar, for inventories with interest to be computed. The Judge states that the claims by the two Jamaican firms are too high based on the evidence while the amount suggested by Pfizer was too low. Lasco’s claim was for US$300 million in lost sales plus interest and cost and Medimpex US$15 million.  The award for partial damages was handed down by Justice Viviene Harris today after presentations by Pfizer, Lasco and Medimpex, a third party to the claim.
Lasco who won the case in the Jamaican courts ultimately won the matter after Pfizer appealed the decision to the Privy Council in the UK. Based on the ruling Lasco resumed sale of the product in 2012.
The suit claimed that Pfizer was the registered proprietor of Jamaican Patent No. 3247 granted by the Governor General of Jamaica on the 22nd January, 2002 to Pfizer’s agent, Maurice Robinson for the protection of the invention “Salts of Amlodipine/Amlodipine Besylate. Robinson assigned the Patent to Pfizer on the 22nd March 2000.
The Company began to sell “Las Amlodipine” which contained Salts of Amlodipine in Jamaica in May, 2002. In 2003 Pfizer joined the Company in a suite that Pfizer had commenced in Jamaica in 2002 under action No. P040 of 2002, to protect its rights under the Jamaican Letters Patent and the Company was constrained to cease selling Las Amlodipine by an injunction granted on the 31st March, 2005 in that action. The weight of the defense mounted by the company was that under the provisions of the Patent Act of Jamaica, the Jamaican Patent was not in force when the Company started to market its own product, Las Amlodipine since an earlier patent No. 18266 granted to Pfizer in Egypt had expired on the 30th March 1997.

Lasco Distributors products.

The court in 2009 found that the case for Pfizer for an infringement of Jamaican Patent No. 3247 failed for the reason that it was not valid and subsisting because Letters Patent 19266 for the same substance filed in Egypt in March, 1987 had expired on March, 1997 prior to the grant of Letters Patent 3247 in Jamaica on 22nd January, 2002. For this reason the court gave judgment in favour of the Company.
Lasco had previously committed to pay a portion of the amount to shareholders as dividend but has so far not stated the likely amount.
Lasco Distributors is listed on the Junior Market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange and traded at $8.01 on Thursday and was priced for a big settlement.