Back to Archived News
ARIAD And Its Co-Plaintiffs Announce That the Court of Appeals Granted Their Petition for Rehearing En Banc In the Lilly NF-kB Patent Lawsuit
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Cambridge, MA -- ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARIA) and its co-plaintiffs today announced that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the "Federal Circuit") has granted their petition for rehearing en banc and has vacated its April 2009 decision in the appeal that Eli Lilly and Co. filed in 2008. All twelve judges of the Federal Circuit will now rehear and reassess the merits of Lilly’s appeal. This decision by the Federal Circuit concerns a judgment holding Lilly liable for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,410,516 (the ‘516 patent) licensed to ARIAD by Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. ARIAD is the exclusive licensee of the technology and patents.
In 2006, the jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (the "District Court") ruled unanimously in favor of the plaintiffs and found that the claims of the NF-kB patent asserted in the lawsuit are valid and infringed by Lilly with respect to Lilly’s osteoporosis drug, Evista® and Lilly’s septic shock drug, Xigris®. The jury awarded damages to the plaintiffs based on U.S. sales of these two drugs through the year 2019, when the patent expires. The jury verdict was then upheld in 2007 by Judge Rya W. Zobel of the District Court who also found in favor of the plaintiffs.
About ARIAD
ARIAD’s vision is to transform the lives of cancer patients with breakthrough medicines. The Company’s mission is to discover, develop and commercialize small-molecule drugs to treat cancer in patients with the greatest and most urgent unmet medical need – aggressive cancers where current therapies are inadequate. ARIAD’s lead product candidate, ridaforolimus, is an investigational mTOR inhibitor in Phase 3 clinical development in patients with advanced sarcomas and is being developed in collaboration with Merck & Co., Inc. ARIAD’s second product candidate, AP24534, is an investigational multi-targeted kinase inhibitor in Phase 1 clinical development in patients with hematological cancers. ARIAD has an exclusive license to pioneering technology and patents related to certain NF-kB cell-signaling activity, which may be useful in treating certain diseases. For additional information about the Company, please visit http://www.ariad.com.
Forward-Looking Statement
This press release contains "forward-looking statements," including statements related to the NF-kB patent litigation and appeal. Forward-looking statements are based on management's expectations and are subject to certain factors, risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, outcome of events, timing and performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the timing, scope, cost and outcome of legal and patent office proceedings concerning our NF-kB patent portfolio, and other factors detailed in the Company's public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The information contained in this press release is believed to be current as of the date of original issue. The Company does not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this document to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in the Company's expectations, except as required by law.
Back to Archived News
