Genentech Gets Win in Patent Dispute

A judge has ruled that MedImmune Inc. cannot pursue antitrust claims in its suit to invalidate a patent controlled by Genentech Inc. for the method to create drugs using antibody molecules to fight diseases.

South San Francisco-based Genentech reached a confidential agreement with Britain’s Celltech Group in 2001 to end a dispute over whose scientists first created the method of manufacturing combined human and nonhuman genes. Gaithersburg, Md.-based MedImmune sued earlier, claiming the companies were wrongly using that agreement to demand royalties from competitors.

U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer in Los Angeles ruled that because a federal judge approved the agreement there was no antitrust violation. The patent that is the subject of the dispute was issued under rules set by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, she noted.

“This is not a case of an anti-competitive private agreement receiving immunity, because it passed through government hands in some ministerial way,” Pfaelzer wrote in a decision issued Wednesday.

MedImmune’s other claims survive, including its request for a ruling that its Synagis children’s drug isn’t in violation of the patent. Synagis treats infant lung infections. The drug, which became available in the U.S. in 1998, had sales of $516 million last year.

Genentech trails only Amgen Inc., the world’s biggest biotechnology company, in sales and market value. Celltech is the largest maker of biotech drugs in Britain. Since the settlement of the Genentech dispute in 2001, Celltech assigned its patent to Genentech and City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte.