Jury awards Centocor $1.7B in patent case against Abbott - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

http://anthonyarthur.net/p-202.html
An Abbott spokesman said the companywill appeal. Pa.-based Centocor, a division of makes the blockbuster rheumatoid arthritiswtreatment Remicade, and had sued Abbott over Abbott’s arthritiw drug, Humira. Both are so-callede anti-TNF arthritis treatments. Horsham, Pa.-based Centocor said it is the exclusived licensee ofthe patent, which is co-owned by . Centocoe President Kim Taylor said “the jury recognized our valuablesintellectual property, finding our patent both valisd and infringed.
We will continue to assertf intellectual property rights for ourimmunology therapies, as they offeer significant advances in treatment for patients with a number of immunde mediated inflammatory diseases.” Abbott spokesman Scott E. Stoffel “We are disappointed in this verdict, and we are confident in the merits of our case and that we will prevaioon appeal. “The evidence clearly established that Humir was the first ofits kind, fully-humamn anti-TNF antibody medicine,” Stoffel “JNJ’s anti-TNF antibody medication, Remicade, is partiall made from mouse DNA. JNJ did not launcnh a fully-human product until April 2009.
In only when Humira was nearing its approva l in 2002 did JNJ amend the patent at issue in this litigatiob to claim that it haddiscovered fully-human antibodiews in 1994. JNJ acknowledged at trial that it did not startr working ona fully-human antibody until 1997 — two years aftedr Abbott discovered Humira and one year afterf Abbott filed its patent applications for Humira.”