“Bristol-Myers characterized AstraZeneca’s actions as ‘deliberate, malicious, willful and reckless disregard of valid patent claims.'”
Source: Bristol-Myers Squibb Brochure
Bristol Myers filed a lawsuit on Monday, alleging that AstraZeneca infringed a patent related to its cancer drug Yervoy. The pharmaceutical company filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.
Bristol Myers argued that AstraZeneca’s Imjudo cancer treatment infringed its patents and that AstraZeneca was initially unable to obtain a license or permit.
The cancer treatment in question, known as cancer immunotherapy, “represents a scientific breakthrough that has revolutionized cancer treatment by manipulating a patient’s immune system to eliminate cancer cells,” according to the lawsuit. Yerboy being Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) treat melanoma, kidney cells carcinoma, colorectal cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, non–small celluliteg-gun (NSCLC), malignant pleural mesothelioma, and esophageal cancer, Alone or in combination with the company’s drugs, Opdivo.
According to the complaint, Imjudo treatment prescriptions and instructions infringe multiple claims of Bristol Myers’ US Patent No. 9,320,811 and US Patent No. 9,273,135.
Bristol-Myers characterized AstraZeneca’s actions as “deliberate, malicious, willful and reckless disregard of valid patent claims.” The company continued,[the] Defendants misappropriate BMS inventions and willfully infringe BMS intellectual property rights. “
This is the second lawsuit filed by Bristol-Myers against AstraZeneca for infringing patents related to cancer treatments. In March 2022, Bristol Myers claimed that AstraZeneca’s cancer drug Imfinzi infringed one of his patents.
competition and profit
Bristol-Myers said that AstraZeneca had been aware of one of its patents since at least December 2021, when it approached Bristol-Myers to license the CTLA-4 patent assets that include the Yervoy patent. claimed.
AstraZeneca has been marketing the Imjudo treatment since October 2022 after receiving approval to use the drug to treat liver and lung cancer, according to the lawsuit. Imjudo and Bristol Myers’ Yervoy are marketed to treat the same cancer.
Imjudo is a relatively new market, but Bristol Myers is making big money with Yervoy. Bristol Myers made more than $2 billion in revenue from Yervoy, according to the company’s financial report.
Bristol-Myers has recently been active in patent litigation against AstraZeneca in this area, according to the lawsuit.
This lawsuit builds on the March 2022 lawsuit, as Imjudo is only approved for use with Imfinzi.
As in a recent lawsuit, Bristol-Myers alleged that AstraZeneca had prior knowledge of the patent through disclosure and discussions between the companies.
Compensation for damages
Bristol-Myers also alleged that it suffered “substantial damages, including lost profits” from patent infringement.
In a somewhat similar case in 2017, Merck agreed to pay $625 million in damages to Bristol-Myers as a result of a patent infringement lawsuit involving cancer drugs. This patent involved blocking the chemical pathway of programmed cell death receptor 1 (PD-1). Merck’s cancer drug also infringed Opdivo, the same drug Bristol-Myers mentioned in his March 2022 lawsuit against AstraZeneca.
Opdivo has made more money for Bristol-Myers than Yervoy in recent years. He made $7.5 billion in revenue from Opdivo in 2021, according to the company’s financial report. At the time of the 2017 lawsuit, Bristol-Myers claimed revenue from Opdivo.
There is no public information on AstraZeneca’s earnings from Imjudo, but according to the company’s latest financial statements, by the third quarter of 2022, the multinational brought more than $2 billion in revenue to Imfinzi.
There is no data on Imjudo’s market success, but the company cites FDA approval as a key milestone this year.
Immuno-oncology is a booming market with estimated global sales of US$104.96 billion in 2021. It is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.2% from 2022 to 2030. In the United States he has 1.7 million diagnosed. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cancer hits every year, and about 600,000 people die from cancer each year in the country.
