IN BRIEF : Judge Bans Genentech Lawyers
A federal judge, furious over the handling of an evidence dispute by lawyers for biotech giant Genentech, accused the firm’s attorneys Monday of allowing witness tampering and ordered their Texas patent lawyers off the case.
In a patent infringement case between Genentech and Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories over the heart drug TPA, Genentech purportedly allowed one of its in-house scientists to use his friendship with an expert for Abbott to attempt to persuade the Abbott expert to change his testimony.
U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel called the actions by Genentech “one of the most egregious I have ever seen. It goes beyond the pale of professional ethics.”
“It is witness tampering that has been agreed to or winked at, and it was supported or accepted by the lawyers,” she said.
Genentech, holder of a patent for TPA, a heart drug made by cloning, has been under fire in a patent claim by Abbott Labs.
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