Gilead fails to overturn $752m BMS patent verdict
A court has rejected Gilead’s attempt to overturn a $752 million verdict in a patent dispute with BMS’ Juno Therapeutics over CAR-T therapies.
In an order unsealed earlier this week, Judge James Otero of the US District Court for the Central District of California denied Gilead-owned Kite Pharma’s arguments that Juno’s patent was invalid and procedural flaws warranted a new trial.
Back in October 2017, Juno accused Kite of infringing US patent number 7,446,190—which covers “Nucleic acids encoding chimeric T cell receptors”—through the sale of immunotherapy treatment Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel). In response, Kite claimed that the patent was invalid.
“Through its scientific collaborators, Kite copied and is now commercialising a cancer immunotherapy that utilises a chimeric T cell receptor invented, and patented, by prominent scientists at Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research,” said the claim. Sloan Kettering owns the ‘190 patent, which is exclusively licensed to Juno.
Last December, a California jury entered a unanimous verdict in favour of Juno, finding that Kite hadn’t proved the ‘190 patent was invalid and that Kite’s infringement was willful. The jury awarded Juno $752 million in damages.
In his decision, issued on March 24, Otero said that Kite’s “current arguments largely mirror its previous arguments”.
In addition to rejecting Kite’s arguments on the patent’s validity, Otero also denied Kite’s movement for a new trial based on eight different issues, including the verdict form, Juno’s introduction of certain evidence, and the time limit.
Kite had argued that it was prejudiced by insufficient time, as it was given only 11.7 hours to present evidence on a wide range of issues, and the time limit meant that it was forced to drop or truncate the testimony of numerous witnesses and couldn’t develop key aspects of its case.
Juno responded that the court hadn’t imposed any rigid time limits. The trial spanned eight days, during which the jury heard from 23 total witnesses, 12 for Juno and 11 for Kite.
“Defendant's argument that it was forced to drop or truncate the testimony of numerous witnesses due to its 11.7-hour allotment is not persuasive,” said Otero.
Before trial, Kite had requested 12.5 hours of witness testimony, but filed an order of proof on the evening before the last day of witness testimony containing nine pages of testimony and exhibits that it was supposedly precluded from presenting, added the judge.
Otero concluded: “The court is doubtful that all of defendant's arguments and exhibits could have been introduced in an additional 48 minutes. Nor is defendant's authority persuasive.”
The court dismissed all of Kite’s other arguments.
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