Drug wars: Genzyme sues competitor over press release

Genzyme, which makes a drug to treat a rare genetic disease, yesterday filed a federal lawsuit against a competitor that issued a press release saying its analogous drug is superior.

In the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Boston, Genzyme charged that Shire, an Irish company with an office in Lexington, misrepresented Shire's own clinical studies and that nobody has yet proven that its drug works any better than Genzyme's for treating type-1 Gaucher disease. People with the disease are unable to dissolve certain types of fats, which can build up in various organs and cause a variety of problems.

Genzyme said the press release was particularly troubling because it targeted not just medical professionals - who presumably would know how to look up the data - but patients, whom it said could be misled into seeking a change of drugs from Genzyme's Ceridase to Shire's Vpriv.

Genzyme wants a judge to order Shire to issue a "corrective" press release, give it all the "ill-gotten" profits it made as a result of the press release and pay damages and lawyers' fees.