shutterstock_1123492958_willy_barton
Willy Barton / Shutterstock.com
16 September 2019Big PharmaSaman Javed

Vectura wins additional $10m patent damages against GSK

A district court has upped Vectura’s award of $89.7 million in damages by $10m, after a jury trial earlier this year found that GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK) has willfully infringed one of its patents.

In a press release on Friday, September 13, Vectura announced that the US District Court for the District of Delaware had granted its motion for a 3% royalty rate on all future US sales of the infringing products until Vectura’s patent expires in 2021.

It was also granted royalties on previous sales of the products from January 1, 2019 to May 16, 2019.

The dispute concerns one of Vectura’s patents (US number 8,303,991), which GSK was found to have infringed with three of its “Ellipta” dry powder inhaler products.

In May, LSIPR reported that a jury had awarded Vectura 89.7m in damages for the period from August 2016 to December 2018.

In its complaint, Vectura had said that GSK’s products contained the pharmaceutical composition claimed by the ‘991 patent.

The three drugs in question are powders to be used with the Ellipta inhaler.

The patent covering the drugs was not included in a US licence agreement between the two companies, Vectura said.

“Vectura and GSK had entered into an agreement in 2010 under which GSK had taken a licence to formulation technology covered by a Vectura patent family.

“These licensed patents expired in July 2016. At this time GSK had the option to license additional patent families under the original agreement but declined to do so, resulting in the filing of the lawsuit by Vectura,” Vectura said in a press release.

Paul Fry, Vectura’s chief financial officer, said the post-judgment motions “further validate Vectura’s original decision to pursue this action with GSK”.

“We will always take action to protect and defend our intellectual property and we will provide further updates on this matter in due course,” Fry said.

The court also denied GSK’s motion for a new trial, and judgment of non-infringement.

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


More on this story

Americas
7 May 2019   British drugmaker Vectura has succeeded in its patent litigation against fellow UK pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline over a series of drugs delivered through GSK’s ‘Ellipta’ dry powder inhaler.
Big Pharma
8 October 2019   The English High Court has sided with pharmaceutical company Vectura and Novartis-owned Sandoz in a passing off lawsuit brought by rival GSK.
Americas
20 November 2020   The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected GlaxoSmithKline’s challenge of a $107 million verdict which found the drugmaker had infringed a dry-powder inhaler patent.

More on this story

Americas
7 May 2019   British drugmaker Vectura has succeeded in its patent litigation against fellow UK pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline over a series of drugs delivered through GSK’s ‘Ellipta’ dry powder inhaler.
Big Pharma
8 October 2019   The English High Court has sided with pharmaceutical company Vectura and Novartis-owned Sandoz in a passing off lawsuit brought by rival GSK.
Americas
20 November 2020   The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected GlaxoSmithKline’s challenge of a $107 million verdict which found the drugmaker had infringed a dry-powder inhaler patent.