SUPREME COURT WILL HEAR MEDIMMUNE PATENT CASE

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving whether MedImmune has legal standing to sue Genentech over a patent covering MedImmune's lucrative lung-infection drug Synagis.

The case centers on whether a patent licensee can sue a patent owner after the two parties have entered a patent licensing agreement.

MedImmune licenses the patent for Synagis (palivizumab) from Genentech, and has been paying the firm a royalty on sales of the drug. Synagis had global sales of more than $1 billion last year. MedImmune alleges Genentech and another firm, Celltech, violated antitrust laws in obtaining the patent. MedImmune has sought to end its royalty payments by having the courts declare the patent invalid.

But a federal district judge in December 2003 ruled that Genentech did not violate antitrust laws with respect to the patent. That decision was upheld by a federal appeals court, which ruled that MedImmune had no basis to sue Genentech because no actual controversy existed between the two companies.

MedImmune later appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments during its 2006-07 term beginning in October.