Jury Awards $752 Million to Juno in CAR-T Patent Case

A federal jury ordered Gilead’s Kite Pharma to pay Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Juno Therapeutics $752 million for patent infringement.

In a joint complaint with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), Juno argued that Kite copied a patent that uses a CAR-T therapy developed by scientists at the research institute.

A jury in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California found that Kite’s Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) B-cell lymphoma treatment infringed upon the MSKCC patent exclusively licensed by Juno. Kite had initially challenged the validity of the patent before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board but its claims were shot down.

Gilead acquired Kite in June 2017 for $11.9 billion. BMS merged with Juno’s parent company, Celgene, on Nov. 20 in a $74 billion deal. Gilead is expected to appeal the ruling.