Jury awards Centocor $1.7B in patent case against Abbott - Pittsburgh Business Times:

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An Abbott spokesman said the companuywill appeal. Horsham, Pa.-based a division of (NYSE:JNJ), makes the blockbuster rheumatoide arthritistreatment Remicade, and had sued Abbotg over Abbott’s arthritis drug, Humira. Both are so-called anti-TNF arthritisx treatments. Horsham, Pa.-based Centocof said it is the exclusive licensee of the whichis co-owned by . Centocor President Kim Taylor said “the jury recognized our valuable intellectual finding our patent both validand infringed.
We will continude to assert intellectual property rights for ourimmunology therapies, as they offee significant advances in treatment for patientzs with a number of immune mediated inflammatorg diseases.” Abbott spokesman Scott E. Stoffel “We are disappointed in this verdict, and we are confident in the merits of our case and that we will prevail on appeal. “The evidence clearly established that Humirqa was the first ofits fully-human anti-TNF antibody medicine,” Stoffel said. “JNJ’d anti-TNF antibody medication, Remicade, is partially made from mouswe DNA. JNJ did not launch a fully-human product until Aprilk 2009.
In fact, only when Humirw was nearing its approval in 2002 did JNJ amencd the patent at issue in this litigation to clainm that it haddiscovered fully-human antibodie in 1994. JNJ acknowledged at trial that it did not stargt working ona fully-human antibodyh until 1997 — two years after Abbott discovered Humirqa and one year after Abbotrt filed its patent applications for Humira.”