Judge: Amgen Patents Were Infringed
The Associated Press
Friday, January 19, 2001
URL: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/business/industries/biotechnology/A20355-2001Jan19.html
Date accessed: 21 January 2001
BOSTON –– A federal judge ruled Friday that Transkaryotic Therapies Inc. violated a series of valid patents belonging to Amgen Inc. in its development of a potentially lucrative anti-anemia drug.
Shares of Amgen shot up 21 percent in after-hours trading following the ruling, rising to $72.75 after finishing the regular session at $60, down $3.32, on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
In a 235-page ruling, U.S. District Court William Young concluded that four claims on two of Amgen's patents were "valid, enforceable and literally infringed," and three claims on another patent were "valid, enforceable and infringed under the doctrine of equivalents."
Spokesmen from the two companies did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment.
The decision concerned the drug Epogen, which is known generically as erytrhopoietin, and accounted for $1.8 billion in sales last year for the Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based Amgen.
Amgen makes Epogen by putting cloned human genes into hamster ovary cells. The Cambridge-based TKT had developed another method to make a similar drug by inducing human cells to make the protein in a laboratory culture.
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On the Net: http://www.mad.uscourts.gov/inet/r0119post.pdf
Category: 2. Patent Law