Former Genentech Employees Charged With Theft of Trade Secrets

Three former Genentech employees were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly stealing trade secrets from the San Francisco-based Roche subsidiary, which is pursuing litigation of its own against the ex-staffers.

The federal indictment alleges that James Quach, Xanthe Lam and her husband Allen Lam, all former Genentech employees, committed criminal trade secret theft to benefit JHL Biotech, a company that mainly develops biosimilars of Genentech products. Also charged is ex-JHL scientist John Chan, who worked closely with Xanthe on JHL’s generics.

Allegedly, Xanthe Lam’s more than 30 years as a principal scientist at Genentech gave her access to valuable intellectual property and secure document repositories. She was involved with many prominent medicines during her tenure at the biotech company, including in her role as lead formulator for the cancer drugs Tecentriq (atezolizumab) and Herceptin (trastuzumab), and the blood vessel growth inhibitor Lucentis (ranibizumab).