Jury Verdict Against Boston Scientific for $42 Million For Infringement of Patent on Biodegradable Drug-Releasing Implant
On January 31st, 2023, a jury awarded $42 million to medical device company TissueGen in a patent infringement case against Boston Scientific for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,596,296, titled “Biodegradable Drug-Releasing Implant.” The ’296 patent relates to a drug releasing biodegradable fiber implant which allows for controlled delivery of therapeutic agents.
The verdict comes after a five-year long dispute between the parties. The Board of Regents of the University of Texas System and TissueGen sued Boston Scientific for infringement of the ’296 patent in November 2017. TissueGen received an exclusive license to the ’296 patent from the University of Texas in 2003.
TissueGen’s infringement case concerned Boston Scientific’s SYNERGY™ technology. Boston Scientific reportedly previously received FDA approval for its SYNERGY™ Bioabsorbable Polymer Drug-Eluting Stent System in 2015. The SYNERGY™ system is alleged to be absorbed shortly after drug elution is complete at three months to eliminate the long-term polymer exposure.
In the first phase of the trial, the jury found that the patent at issue was valid and that Boston Scientific had infringed the patent. In the second phase of the trial, the jury further found that Boston Scientific’s infringement was willful and awarded the plaintiffs $42 million in lost royalties.
Dr. Kevin Nelson, the founder of TissueGen, had allegedly met the Boston Scientific executives in a symposium in 2009 where he told them about the patented technology. Dr. Nelson is a named inventor on the ’296 patent and is reported to have invented the technology while he was an employee of the University of Texas.
TissueGen is a medical device company that reportedly has a portfolio of patents on drug delivery technology. It was founded in 2000. Boston Scientific is a worldwide medical device company founded in 1979. Boston Scientific recently announced that it generated net sales of $3.242 billion during the fourth quarter of 2022.
Social Media Success: Trends in Pharma Digital Strategies
According to data published by business intelligence firm Cutting Edge Information, the majority (73%) of pharmaceutical marketing teams expect to use or continue to use the popular social media forum Facebook to facilitate their digital marketing strategies over the next one to two years.
According to Cutting Edge Information, “[i]n these strategy meetings, teams consider several factors, including the target patient population, therapeutic area and geographic region.” For example, “region can affect strategies because each country has its own pharma marketing rules and regulations.”
The survey, which included marketing teams from companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Chiesi, Janssen, Mallinckrodt, and Takeda, also revealed that YouTube (64%) was the second most popular among the pharmaceutical marketing teams, while LinkedIn (55%) and Twitter (45%) rounded out the top four.
Not as popular, but still commonly used social networking sites include Instagram (18%) and Vimeo, Google+, Tumblr, and SlideShare each with 9% of pharmaceutical marketing teams utilizing them. Interestingly, additional data from the study show that no surveyed pharmaceutical or medical device companies reported using Pinterest, Vine, Flickr or Reddit.
Med Device M&A Values Jump Nearly 50% in 1st Half of 2016
According to MergerMarket, the value of mergers and acquisitions in the medical device area jumped by nearly 50% to $74.5 billion in the first half of 2016 (H1 2016) compared with the first six months of 2015. The 45.5% surge in M&A cumulative value comes despite a 14.5% decrease in the total number of deals (394).
40% of the H1 2016 medical device M&A cumulative value came from a single blockbuster deal, the currently pending deal between Abbott Laboratories and St. Jude Medical. The market has responded favorably to the Abbott Laboratories acquisition, as the value of the combined entity has risen from $25 billion at the April announcement to almost $30 billion today.
In comparison, the pharmaceutical sector demonstrated declines in both the volume and cumulative value of H1 2016 M&A deals at -12.4% and -34.4% respectively. The pharmaceutical sector totaled 162 M&A deals, valued at an aggregate of $83.2 billion. In contrast, H1 2015 had 185 M&A deals valued at a total of $126.8 billion. As with the medical device space, a major deal accounted for a significant portion of the cumulative M&A value – the $35 billion acquisition of Baxalta International by the Irish headquartered Shire Plc.
Biotechnology M&A deals increased in both volume and cumulative value, rising to 75 deals worth $6.1 billion, an increase of 36.7% over H1 2015.
However, one notable deal collapsed – Pfizer’s $183.7 billion bid for Ireland-based Allergan was withdrawn following the introduction of new tax rules by the U.S. Treasury Department. Looking prospectively, the new April 2016 tax rules may have an impact on M&A deals in the 2nd half of 2016.
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