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31 October 2016Americas

Kyle Bass secures PTAB victory against NPS Pharmaceuticals patent

Kyle Bass’s organisation the Coalition for Affordable Drugs has won a patent battle against NPS Pharmaceuticals at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) after successfully proving claims covering Gattex (teduglutide [rDNA origin]) to be unpatentable.

Gattex is used for the treatment of short bowel syndrome.

The PTAB found that all of the claims for US patent number 7,056,886 B2, against which the coalition had instituted an inter partes review, were unpatentable due to obviousness.

NPS Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Shire in 2015.

Law firm Merchant & Gould, which represented the coalition, said in a press release: “This win for Kyle Bass’s group under the America Invents Act represents a significant milestone in the fight to clear the way for generic competition, which in turn can translate into cheaper drug prices for patients.”

The firm added: “Such potential for lower drug costs offers a chance for welcome relief at a time when the public continues to face skyrocketing healthcare costs and dramatic price hikes for medications by drug manufacturers.”

The PTAB said in one of its two final written decisions on October 21: “We are persuaded that petitioner has sufficiently established that the prior art it relies upon render the challenged claim obvious, and patent owner’s arguments do not persuade us otherwise.”

It said in the second final written decision: “Moreover, even if an ordinary artisan considered the results … unexpected, we are not persuaded that the results are probative of non-obviousness.”