On October 25, 2018, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California filed an indictment against four individuals (three of whom were former Genentech employees) alleging theft of trade secrets, computer fraud and abuse, and other crimes. The indictment alleges that the defendants stole trade secrets related to Genentech’s products…
Last week, NeuClone Ltd. announced it commenced its Phase I clinical trial for its biosimilar Herceptin® (trastuzumab). According to NeuClone, the Phase I trial is a single-dose, randomized, three-arm double blind study of over 100 healthy volunteers, conducted under the Australian Clinical Trial Notification (CTN) scheme. According to NeuClone, “[t]his…
We have covered Pfizer’s development of biosimilars of Genentech’s Avastin® (bevacizumab) and Herceptin® (trastuzumab) and its related IPR filings IPR2016-01771 and IPR2016-01837. Following written decisions invalidating those two patents, Genentech appealed and challenged the constitutionality of subjecting patents that issued before the America Invents Act (AIA) was enacted in 2011…
As we previously reported, Pfizer filed a petition for IPR of certain claims of Hoffman-La Roche’s U.S. Patent No. 8,314,225 (IPR2018-01219). According to the petition, the challenged claims “purport to claim nucleic acid sequences that encode the C-terminal part of a human immunoglobulin heavy chain and a method for improving the expression…
Genentech recently submitted two opening appellate briefs to the Federal Circuit in connection with its appeals from the Board’s final written decisions in Hospira’s IPRs, IPR2016-01771 and IPR2016-01837, which found that the challenged claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,622,115 and 7,807,799, respectively, were unpatentable in view of the prior art….
Yesterday, September 4, 2018, Genentech filed a complaint against Samsung Bioepis in the District of Delaware alleging infringement under the BPCIA of 21 patents based on Bioepis’s filing of an aBLA for SB3, a biosimilar candidate referencing Herceptin® (trastuzumab). This is the fourth litigation regarding a biosimilar of Herceptin®, following…
More than a dozen BPCIA patent litigations are currently pending in various U.S. district courts. Below are some highlights of activity in some of those cases from this month. Genentech v. Amgen (D. Del.): bevacizumab On August 2, 2018, Judge Sleet issued a memorandum in response to the parties’ ongoing…
Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. announced today that it launched HERVYCTA (trastuzumab), a biosimilar of Roche’s HERCEPTIN, in India. According to the press release, HERVYCTA is indicated for the treatment of HER2-positive cancers (early breast cancer, metastatic breast cancer and metastatic gastric cancer), and is available in strengths of 150mg and…
Below is our second quarter update on the U.S. patent litigations concerning proposed or approved biosimilar products. For additional details, please consult our previous quarterly updates (Q3 2016, Q4 2016, Q1 2017, Q2 2017, Q3 2017, Q4 2017, Q1 2018). Please also refer to our BPCIA Patent Litigation and Federal…
There are presently seven biosimilar-related appeals pending before the Federal Circuit. Two of those appeals, Amgen v. Sandoz (Case No. 18-1551) and Amgen v. Coherus (Case No. 18-1993), are from district court judgments in favor of the biosimilar applicants. The other five appeals are from final written decisions of the…