It is the patent for a statin coated with niacin. The combo provides a ‘new’ drug and thus has patent life. Once a blockbuster product comes off patent and is made by the generic houses, it is no longer a blockbuster. The pharma companies try to get new patent life for their product by making a combo product with patentability, or a new dosage form, or coupling it to a new delivery system. A drug only gets 17 years of patent life, including drug trials before marketing.
And then that’s when they can make generics?