Institut Pasteur takes on former licensee Abbott

French non-profit foundation Institut Pasteur has sued Abbott Laboratories, a former licensee of a patent covering in vitro diagnostic methods directed to HIV.

In a claim filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division on Monday, October 2, the institute accused Abbott of infringing its US patent number 6,544,728 B1.

The patent is called “Methods and kits for diagnosing human immunodeficiency virus type 2 (HIV-2), proteins of HIV-2, and vaccinating agents for HIV-2”.

Scientists have determined that there are at least two HIV viruses, now called “HIV-1” and “HIV-2”.  While HIV-2 is not as prevalent as the first, it can cause AIDS in infected individuals.

Institut Pasteur said that the patent claims in vitro diagnostic methods for detecting the presence or absence of antibodies that bind to antigens of HIV-2, and kits for performing these methods.

According to the claim, Luc Montagnier and members of his group at Pasteur are widely recognised as being the first to isolate HIV-1, in 1983.

Because HIV-1 and HIV-2 are different, the methods and reagents used to detect the presence of HIV-1 could not be relied on to detect HIV-2 in a patient or blood bank sample, explained the institute.

“To address the need to detect HIV-2 infection, Dr Montagnier and his group at Pasteur discovered and described novel in vitro methods and reagents that could be used to detect HIV-2 infection in patients and in blood bank supplies,” added the claim.

Abbott’s licence to the patent terminated in March this year.

The institute claimed that although Abbott initially paid royalties on sales of the licensed products, it stopped paying in June 2015.

Institut Pasteur claimed that the healthcare company has infringed the ‘728 patent through the sale of two products: Abbott Prism HIV O Plus and Architect HIV Ag/Ab Combo.

“Abbott’s infringement has been wilful and will continue unless abated,” said the institute.

Did you enjoy reading this story?  Sign up to our free newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.