Wyeth, Cordis drop suit over Cypher drug. Source: Johnson & Johnson

Wyeth and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) subsidiary, Cordis, have dropped lawsuits over a contract for a Wyeth drug used with Cordis’ Cypher stents.

In October 2006, Wyeth sued Cordis, claiming it breached a contract for rapamycin, a Wyeth drug used to coat J&J’s Cypher stent. Cordis responded by filing its own suit the following day in Chancery Court, in order to force Wyeth to maintain a contract to supply the medicine.

Bloomberg News reported that both cases were dismissed at the behest of the two companies, who did not specify a reason. In Oct. 2007, the companies told a Delaware Chancery Court judge that they were in “active negotiations to try to settle this action,” Bloomberg reported.

According to the initial complaint filed in federal court in Wilmington, Del., Wyeth claimed that Cordis failed to develop ways to use variations of rapamycin in stents, and that the company has been unable to do so with anyone else because of the contract.

Wyeth sells rapamycin as Rapamune (sirolimus) to help prevent organ rejection in kidney transplant patients. Rapamune generated $265.2 million in sales in the first nine months of the year for Madison, N.J.-based Wyeth, not including royalties from Johnson & Johnson for Cypher sales, Bloomberg reported.