Judge overturns jury’s $235m verdict in GSK v Teva clash

A US judge has overturned a jury verdict which found that Teva owed GSK $235 million in damages for infringing a patent covering a blood pressure drug.

Yesterday, March 28, District Judge Leonard Stark at the US District Court for the District of Delaware ruled that the evidence didn’t support the jury’s finding that Teva’s generic version of GSK’s Coreg (carvedilol) had infringed US patent number RE40,000.

The patent is called “Method of treatment for decreasing mortality resulting from congestive heart failure”.

GSK had sued Teva in 2014 for filing an Abbreviated New Drug Application seeking to market carvedilol, a class of chemical compounds used to treat patients with high blood pressure and heart failure.

In June last year, a jury awarded GSK $234.1 million in lost profits and $1.4 million in reasonable royalty damages, and found that Teva had failed to prove that the patent was obvious.

Yesterday, Stark said: “The court agrees with Teva that neither sufficient nor substantial evidence supports the jury's finding of inducement.”

He added that even when all of the evidence is taken in the light most favourable to GSK and all reasonable inferences are drawn in favour of GSK, the evidence “cannot support a reasonable finding that Teva caused any infringement” of GSK’s ‘000 patent.

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