Por Blake Brittain
Aug 14 (Reuters) – AstraZeneca persuaded a Delaware federal judge on Wednesday to overturn a jury ruling that found the company must pay $107.5 million for infringing cancer drug patents owned by Pfizer unit Wyeth.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly ruled that two patents that Pfizer said AstraZeneca infringed with its blockbuster lung cancer drug Tagrisso were invalid.
Spokespeople for Pfizer and AstraZeneca did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the decision.
New York-based Pfizer, which acquired Wyeth in 2009, sued AstraZeneca in 2021. It said AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso infringed patents related to the breast cancer drug Nerlynx, which Puma Biotechnology makes under a license from Pfizer’s patents.
Tagrisso brought in revenue of nearly $5.8 billion for U.K.-based AstraZeneca last year, according to a company filing.
In May, a jury sided with Pfizer and awarded it $107.5 million in damages. Kennelly ruled in favor of AstraZeneca on Wednesday, finding that the verdict could not stand because the patents lacked valid written descriptions of their inventions and would not allow an ordinary scientist in the field to recreate them.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Ricardo Figueroa)
