Some three years after the University of Pennsylvania claimed four of Roche’s breast cancer meds infringed its intellectual property, the parties have managed to resolve the dispute just weeks before a jury trial was set to start.
Penn and Roche’s Genentech unit have settled the lawsuit Penn originally brought to a Delaware federal court in 2022, which accused the drugmaker of infringing a now-expired patent on methods of tumor treatment pioneered at the university’s Abramson Cancer Center.
In turn, the case has been dismissed with prejudice, meaning neither party can retry their claims in court, according to a decision filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. The case was set to go before a jury March 31, Bloomberg Law reports. Details on the exact terms of the settlement agreement were not disclosed in Friday’s filing.
The resolution comes just days after federal Judge Jennifer Hall signed an order pausing the case “pending performance of certain obligations under the settlement agreement reached by the parties,” according to a separate filing in the Delaware court.
The stay on the case required that Penn and Genentech file a stipulation of dismissal or a joint update on their deliberations by March 24.
Genentech confirmed with Fierce Pharma on Friday that "the parties have amicably resolved the dispute," though the company's spokesperson did not comment further on the outcome.
Penn’s 2022 complaint against Genentech revolves around a patent, dubbed ‘558, that was originally granted to the school in December 2009.
The ‘558 patent covers a method developed at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine to treat patients with ErbB protein-mediated tumors by administering an antibody followed by radiation, according to the original lawsuit.
According to the university’s lawyers, the treatment approach closely resembles that outlined in the FDA approvals for four of Roche’s anti-ErbB antibodies in breast cancer: intravenous Herceptin and the drug’s subcutaneous counterpart Herceptin Hylecta, plus Perjeta and Phesgo.
By marketing that quartet of cancer meds, Roche infringed Penn’s ‘558 patent, the school’s lawyers argued in the 2022 lawsuit.
Further, Penn’s legal team suggested the Genentech unit was “willfully blind to the fact that its acts were infringing” and contended that the company must have been aware of the school’s patent because Roche explicitly tried blocking foreign counterparts to the intellectual property at the European Patent Office in 2007, 2016 and 2019.
In addition to seeking a ruling that Roche willfully infringed the ‘558 patent, Penn was originally pursuing an unspecified sum in damages as well as an ongoing licensing fee for Roche’s alleged use of its invention.
The four breast cancer drugs at the center of the lawsuit continue to rake in sizable sales for Roche, though only Phesgo—which is the youngest of the quartet with its first approval in 2020—managed to grow in 2024 overall.
For the entire year, Phesgo increased (PDF) sales 62% to 1.74 billion Swiss francs (nearly $2 billion), Roche reported in late January. Herceptin sales fell 11% to 1.38 billion Swiss francs ($1.5 billion) over the same period, while Perjeta’s 2024 sales dropped to 3.6 billion Swiss francs ($4 billion) versus roughly 3.8 billion Swiss francs in 2023.