The folks at GlaxoSmithKline must be celebrating today: Rival Novartis has handed back U.S. rights to a drug that might have become a copycat version of the GSK blockbuster Advair. That move gives Glaxo one less problem to worry about. GSK chief Andrew Witty has been pooh-poohing the potential of generic rivals to that best-selling lung drug, which accounted for $7.6 billion in 2009 sales. The inhaled drug isn’t easy to make, Witty has said, making it even tougher to copy. For that reason, it called on the FDA to set strict standards for any generic form of the drug. Nonetheless, Novartis and others have been working on their versions; after all, even a daunting task is worth it when billions in sales are at stake. With Novartis handing the rights to an experimental compound–presumed to be copycat Advair–back to Vectura Group, that removes one potential rival; analysts say Vectura doesn’t have the resources to come up with copycat Advair on its own. Despite the news,