Jury orders Takeda subsidiary to pay Bayer $155 million

A US jury has ordered pharmaceutical company  Baxalta Inc. to pay $155 million to  Bayer Healthcare following a patent infringement trial.

Jurors in the US District Court for the District of Delaware delivered the verdict yesterday February 5, after finding that Baxalta’s haemophilia drug  Adynovate infringed Bayer’s IP.

Bayer sued Baxalta, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based  Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, in December 2016. Bayer accused the company of infringing its patent for ‘Factor VIII conjugates’ (US number 9,364,520), a complex protein used as part of a treatment for haemophilia A.

In the suit, Bayer claimed that it had developed the science behind the ‘520 patent partly in cooperation with American biopharmaceutical company  Nektar Therapeutics. Bayer ended its relationship with Nektar in 2004.

According to the complaint, Nektar filed European patent applications based on “information Nektar obtained through communications from Bayer”. The two companies were embroiled in litigation in German courts over the matter,  which Bayer cited as evidence that the defendants had knowledge of its ‘520 patent.

Nektar entered into a licensing agreement with Baxalta’s original parent company Baxter International in 2005. The purpose of the deal was to develop a Factor VIII-based haemophilia treatment, the suit said.

Bayer argued that the resulting product, Adynovate, infringed “each and every element” of claims 1 and 9 in the ‘520 patent. The company requested an order enjoining the defendants from any further infringing activity, as well as damages and costs owing to their “wilful infringement” of Bayer’s patent.

In a statement sent to LSIPR, Bayer said the verdict confirmed the “strength of Bayer’s innovation in haemophilia treatment”.

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