Genentech Wins Patent Dispute With GlaxoSmithKline
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 4, 2001-- Genentech, Inc. (NYSE: DNA - news) today announced that a federal jury in Delaware unanimously found that Genentech's two leading oncology products, Herceptin® (Trastuzumab) and Rituxan® (Rituximab), do not infringe patents held by GlaxoSmithKline and therefore that Genentech is not required to pay royalties to GlaxoSmithKline on those products. The jury also unanimously found that all of the patent claims that GlaxoSmithKline asserted against Genentech were invalid.
``We are very pleased with the verdict,'' said Arthur D. Levinson, Ph.D., chairman and chief executive officer at Genentech. ``We made our case successfully that GlaxoSmithKline's technology played no role in the development of Herceptin and Rituxan, and that GlaxoSmithKline's patent claims are invalid because Genentech scientists and others working in the field earlier developed the very technology that GlaxoSmithKline was claiming as its own.''
GlaxoSmithKline filed its lawsuit against Genentech on May 28, 1999 and asserted that Genentech infringed four U.S. patents owned by GlaxoSmithKline. Two of the patents related to the use of specific kinds of antibodies for the treatment of human disease, including cancer. The other two patents asserted against Genentech related to preparations of specific kinds of antibodies to make them more stable and the methods by which such preparations are made. |
