Illumina to pay Enzo $21m to end patent dispute

Illumina has reached a settlement with Enzo Life Sciences, bringing an end to allegations that it infringed a DNA detection patent.

California-based Illumina will pay Enzo $21 million to Enzo to settle the dispute, which centres on US patent number 7,064,197.

The settlement is the fifth out of 11 lawsuits that Enzo had filed in the US District Court for the District of Delaware in 2012.

All of the lawsuits either centred on the same patent and/or two other patents, US patent numbers 6,992,180 and 8,097,405.

So far, Enzo has settled with Life Technologies, Agilent Technologies, Luminex, Abbott Laboratories and Affymetrix.

The rest of the lawsuits are pending and remain unaffected by the Illumina settlement, Enzo said.

The patent includes claims that can be used as diagnostic tools for detecting analytes  and as therapeutic agents.