Bombay HC tells Shreya Life to rename antibiotic drug

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has directed the removal of Shreya Life Sciences Pvt Ltd's antibiotic brand Lefoxin Biox from the national trademark register, ruling that it is too similar to Lanoxin, a heart drug marketed in India for more than six decades by Glaxo Group's local arm.

Justice Somasekhar Sundaresan, ruling in favour of Glaxo Group Ltd, noted that the competing marks had coexisted and said Shreya would need to undertake rebranding. The court directed that the removal be implemented from December 31.

"The time until then shall be used by Mumbai-based pharmaceutical firm Shreya to implement a communications, marketing and public relations campaign to widely disseminate that the impugned mark, Lefoxin Biox, would change to such new mark as may be adopted by Shreya with effect from January 1, 2027," said the court in its order of October 28.


Hiren Kamod, counsel for Glaxo Group, argued that the company owns the Lanoxin mark for tablets containing digoxin, prescribed for cardiac failure and supraventricular arrhythmias. Glaxo has used the mark for the drug in India since the 1950s. "The impugned mark, Lefoxin Biox, is nearly identical to the Glaxo Mark, Lanoxin, visually and phonetically. Shreya has only replaced the letters 'an' with 'ef'," argued the counsel for Glaxo Group.