PTAB grants IPR of Celgene patents after Kyle Bass challenge

The Coalition for Affordable Drugs, an organisation closely tied to hedge fund manager Kyle Bass, has persuaded the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to institute an inter partes review concerning the validity of two patents owned by biopharmaceutical company Celgene.

The coalition and Bass have filed numerous challenges to pharmaceutical and biotechnology company’s patents this year.

Its dispute with Celgene has proven to be particularly heated after the biopharma company sought sanctions against Bass and the coalition in July.

Celgene requested that the pair should be sanctioned for abusing the IPR system after it claimed that he was using the “tool to affect the stock prices of public companies”. The PTAB rejected Celgene’s request in September.

The coalition’s IPR request, which sought to invalidate the patents on the grounds of obviousness, targeted US patent numbers 6,045,501 and 6,315,720.

The ‘720 patent, which covers a method for helping a patient avoid the adverse side effects of drugs used to treat teratogens, was challenged in April this year while the ‘501 patent, called “Methods for delivering a drug to a patient while preventing the exposure of a foetus or other contraindicated individual to the drug”, was challenged in May.

Contrary to Celgene’s protestations that the petitions were abusive, the PTAB ruled yesterday, October 27, that there was a reasonable likelihood that the coalition would prevail in invalidating the patent at trial.

Despite initial setbacks, Bass and the coalition are starting to find success in reaching the trial stage at the PTAB.

IPR petitions filed by Bass against patents owned by Biogen and Acorda Therapeutics were rejected earlier this year, but the PTAB recently approved petitions challenging patents owned by Shire and NPS Pharmaceuticals.