Patent ruling wipes £1bn off Indivior market value

DRUG MAKER Indivior has become the latest London-listed company to crash in value after a Us-patent ruling wiped more than £1bn from its market value.

Its Suboxone addiction treatment, a dissolvable film placed under the tongue that tricks the brain into thinking it is still receiving an opioid, accounts for 80pc of Indivior’s $1bn (£770m) revenues and there are fears it could now haemorrhage sales.

It is used to treat addiction to illegal opioids and prescription opioid-based painkillers and had been forecast to grow strongly amid a national emergency declared by Donald Trump in response to widespread dependence.

But a US court ruled Indian rival Dr Reddy’s generic version of Suboxone does not infringe patents, paving the way for it to go on sale. Indivior said it would appeal, which is expected to take up to 18 months, with analysts pencilling in competition from rivals in late 2018 or early 2019.

Shares in the FTSE 250 company, which was spun out of Reckitt Benckiser three years ago, plunged 35.8pc to 267.6p. Indivior’s fall follows large slumps at FTSE 100 firms Provident Financial, WPP and Dixons Carphone in the past fortnight.

Indivior said it was drawing up contingency plans for tackling generic competition, but admitted it could lead to a “rapid and material loss of market share … within a matter of months”. Its previous guidance had assumed there would be no rival products.

Analysts struck a cautious note despite the drop. James Vane-tempest, of Jefferies, said Indivior was working on an injectable treatment for opioid addiction that could be approved by November, putting it in “a much stronger position than two years ago”.