New York, NY - Patent For Cancer Drug Belong to Israeli Scientists

New York, NY - A federal judge ruled that three scientists from Israel are the true inventors of a patent used for the blockbuster cancer drug Erbitux rather than seven people whose names are now on it.

U.S.District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said lawyers for the scientists had proved they were entitled to sole inventorship of the patent. Lawyers had predicted that the case could have significant effects on the future of Erbitux, a colon-cancer treatment drug made by ImClone.
In a 2003 lawsuit, Yeda Research and Development Co. of Israel sued ImClone, which has an exclusive license for the formula used in Erbitux to inhibit tumor cells, and its partner Aventis, claiming three of its researchers were the real inventors. "It is not the intent of Yeda to keep anybody off the market," a lawyer for the plaintiffs said in a hearing last summer. A lawyer for Aventis later noted that one trial witness had remarked that hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake for Yeda and Erbitux, which is distributed in the U.S. by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.