Dr Reddy's launches generic Allegra drug in US

India's No 2 drugmaker Dr. Reddy's Laboratories said on Thursday it has launched its over-the-counter Fexofenadine HCl tablets, a generic version of Sanofi Aventis' antihistamine drug Allegra.

Dr. Reddy's will market the Fexofenadine HCl tablets under store brand labels in the US market, the Indian company said in a statement.

In January, the U.S. District Court of New Jersey had cleared the generic's sale by lifting an injunction passed last June against the Indian drugmaker from selling a copycat version of the allergy treatment drug.

Health insurers, pharmaceutical benefit managers and other healthcare payers push consumers to use generics to help control spending after the U.S. government enacted a broad healthcare reform law last year.

Generics are poised to increase their market dominance in the next few years in the United States, driven by the wave of patent expirations, rising from 77% of prescriptions in the first half of 2010 to as much as 85% by 2014, a forecast by IMS Health Inc showed.