Gilead
If any party is successful in establishing exclusive rights to axi-cel, our anticipated revenues and earnings from the sale of that product could be adversely affected.
In October 2017, we acquired Kite, which is now our wholly-owned subsidiary. Through the acquisition, we acquired axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel), a CAR T therapy. In October 2017, we received approval from FDA for axi-cel, now known commercially as Yescarta.
We own patents and patent applications that claim axi-cel chimeric DNA segments. Third parties may have, or may obtain rights to, patents that allegedly could be used to prevent or attempt to prevent us from commercializing axi-cel or to require us to obtain a license in order to commercialize axi-cel. For example, we are aware that Juno has exclusively licensed Patent No. 7,446,190 (the ‘190 patent) which was issued to Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In September 2017, Juno and Sloan Kettering Cancer Center filed a lawsuit against Kite in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging that the commercialization of axi-cel infringes the ‘190 patent.
In August 2015, Kite filed a petition for inter partes review in the USPTO alleging that the asserted claims of the ‘190 patent are invalid as obvious. In December 2016, the PTAB determined that the claims of the ‘190 patent are not invalid due to obviousness. In February 2017, Kite filed a Notice of Appeal to the CAFC. That appeal is currently pending.
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We cannot predict the ultimate outcome of intellectual property claims related to axi-cel. If Juno’s patent is upheld as valid and Juno successfully proves infringement of that patent by axi-cel, we could be prevented from selling Yescarta unless we were able to obtain a license to this patent. Such a license may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all.
Kite Pharma
10-k For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016
Commitments and Contingencies
The Company is facing one patent infringement lawsuit as of December 31, 2016. Juno Therapeutics, Inc. (“Juno”) and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer and Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research (“MSK”) filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the Company on December 19, 2016 in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Delaware. Juno and MSK are claiming that KTE-C19, upon commercialization, will infringe an MSK patent licensed by Juno relating to certain CAR compositions of matter. On February 23, 2017, the Company filed a motion to dismiss this lawsuit based upon lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Company had previously filed a petition with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) to institute an inter partes review (“IPR”) proceeding requesting a determination that the claims in the MSK patent are unpatentable. On December 16, 2016, the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board declined to revoke the MSK patent. The Company filed a Notice of Appeal to this decision on February 16, 2017. The lawsuit is at the early stages of the legal process and has not progressed sufficiently through discovery and/or development of important factual information and legal issues to enable the Company to estimate a range of possible loss, if any. While it is not possible to accurately predict or determine the eventual outcome of the IPR appeal and the lawsuit, an adverse determination could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s consolidated results of operations, financial position or cash flows.
Regardless of outcome, litigation can also have an adverse impact on the Company because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources and other factors.
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Pages 50 – 55
Third-party claims of intellectual property infringement may prevent or delay our product discovery and development efforts.
Our commercial success depends in part on our avoiding infringement of the patents and proprietary rights of third parties. There is a substantial amount of litigation involving patents and other intellectual property rights in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Numerous U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications, which are owned by third parties, exist in the fields in which we are developing our product candidates. As described in more detail below, we are engaged in litigation in which a third party claims that our lead product candidate, KTE-C19, infringes or will infringe its patent rights.
The patent-in-suit in the litigation in which we are involved is owned by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer and Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, or MSK, and licensed to Juno Therapeutics, Inc., or Juno, and relates to certain CAR compositions of matter. Juno is a publicly held biotherapeutics company developing CAR and TCR technologies. On August 13, 2015, we filed a petition with the USPTO to institute an IPR proceeding of the MSK patent. The purpose of the IPR petition was to seek a determination before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, or PTAB, that the claims recited in the patent licensed to Juno were invalid. A decision was issued in the IPR on December 16, 2016 wherein the PTAB declined to hold the claims invalid. On February 16, 2017, we filed a Notice of Appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Separately, on December 19, 2016, Juno and MSK filed a patent infringement lawsuit against us in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware with respect to the MSK patent. On February 23, 2017, we filed a motion to dismiss this lawsuit based upon lack of subject matter jurisdiction. If we are unsuccessful in our motion to dismiss, we expect the case to proceed. If the motion is successful, MSK may nonetheless bring another lawsuit in the future. Based on the controlling statute, in our defense against the infringement claims we would be precluded, or “estopped” from asserting that the patent at issue is invalid on any ground that we raised or reasonably could have raised during the IPR proceeding. The precise scope of this statutory estoppel is evolving in the courts, and we are not estopped from raising additional invalidity challenges to the patent, as well as defenses in the lawsuit based on other grounds.
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To have succeeded in the IPR proceeding, we would have needed to establish invalidity of the MSK patent by a “preponderance of the evidence,” meaning that, based on the evidence, it is more likely than not that the claims in the patent are invalid. In contrast, in the separate infringement lawsuit filed against us, we would need to prove invalidity by “clear and convincing evidence,” a heightened standard of proof. In the U.S., issued patents enjoy a presumption of validity in court, but not at the USPTO. If the MSK patent were upheld in the IPR appeal and were held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be not invalid, and that it covers KTE-C19, and if a court were to grant an injunction, Juno and MSK may be able to block our ability to sell the product unless we obtained a license or until such patent expires (which we believe will be in 2024) or is finally determined to be not infringed, unpatentable, invalid or unenforceable. While we believe that we have a meritorious basis for asserting that the MSK patent is invalid, patent litigation is inherently uncertain, and therefore we cannot be certain that we will prevail in these proceedings.
Additionally, there may be third-party patents of which we are currently unaware with claims to materials, formulations, methods of manufacture or methods for treatment related to the use or manufacture of our product candidates. Because patent applications can take many years to issue, there may be currently pending patent applications which may later result in issued patents that our product candidates may infringe. In addition, third parties may obtain patents in the future and claim that use of our technologies infringes upon these patents. If any third-party patents were held by a court of competent jurisdiction to cover the manufacturing process of our product candidates, constructs or molecules used in or formed during the manufacturing process, or any final product itself, the holders of any such patents may be able to block our ability to commercialize the product candidate unless we obtained a license under the applicable patents, or until such patents expire or they are finally determined to be held not infringed, unpatentable, invalid or unenforceable. Similarly, if any third-party patent were held by a court of competent jurisdiction to cover aspects of our formulations, processes for manufacture or methods of use, including combination therapy or patient selection methods, the holders of any such patent may be able to block our ability to develop and commercialize the product candidate unless we obtained a license or until such patent expires or is finally determined to be held not infringed, unpatentable, invalid or unenforceable. In either case, such a license may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. If we are unable to obtain a necessary license to a third-party patent on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, our ability to commercialize our product candidates may be impaired or delayed, which could in turn significantly harm our business. Parties making claims against us may seek and obtain injunctive or other equitable relief, which could effectively block our ability to further develop and commercialize our product candidates. Defense of these claims, regardless of their merit, would involve substantial litigation expense and would be a substantial diversion of employee resources from our business. In the event of a successful claim of infringement against us, we may have to pay substantial damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees for willful infringement, obtain one or more licenses from third parties, pay royalties or redesign our infringing products, which may be impossible or require substantial time and monetary expenditure. We cannot predict whether any such license would be available at all or whether it would be available on commercially reasonable terms. These risks apply to the MSK patent and the related legal proceedings as well as to any other relevant third-party patent. Furthermore, even in the absence of litigation, we may need to obtain licenses from third parties to advance our research or allow commercialization of our product candidates. We may fail to obtain any of these licenses at a reasonable cost or on reasonable terms, if at all. In that event, we would be unable to further develop and commercialize our product candidates, which could harm our business significantly.
We may not be successful in obtaining or maintaining necessary rights to product components and processes for our development pipeline through acquisitions and in-licenses.
Presently we have rights to the intellectual property, through licenses from third parties and under patent applications that we own or will own, to develop KTE-C19 and certain other product candidates. Because our programs may involve additional product candidates that may require the use of proprietary rights held by third parties, the growth of our business will likely depend in part on our ability to acquire, in-license or use these proprietary rights. For instance, while we have certain intellectual property directed to a CAR-based product candidate that targets the EGFRvIII antigen, we may require an additional license relating to the EGFRvIII scFv target binding site in order to commercialize a CAR-based product candidate that targets the EGFRvIII antigen. In addition, while we have patent rights directed to certain CAR constructs, we do not have, and do not expect to obtain, any intellectual property to broad TCR constructs. Rather, any intellectual property directed to TCR-based product candidates that we may obtain would likely be product and/or construct specific.
Our product candidates may also require specific formulations to work effectively and efficiently and these rights may be held by others. We may be unable to acquire or in-license any compositions, methods of use, processes or other third-party intellectual property rights from third parties that we identify. Even if we are able to obtain a license, it may be non-exclusive, thereby giving our competitors access to the same technologies licensed to us. In that event, we may be required to expend significant time and resources to develop or license replacement technology.
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The licensing and acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive area, and companies, which may be more established, or have greater resources than we do, may also be pursuing strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights that we may consider necessary or attractive in order to commercialize our product candidates. More established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, cash resources and greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities.
For example, for licenses to additional product candidates, we would have to negotiate a license with the NIH or other third parties for the rights to certain patents and patent applications relating to such product candidates. There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully complete such negotiations and ultimately acquire the rights to the intellectual property surrounding the additional product candidates that we may seek to acquire.
We may be involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our patents or the patents of our licensors, which could be expensive, time-consuming and unsuccessful.
Competitors may infringe our patents or the patents of our licensors. To counter infringement or unauthorized use, we may be required to file infringement claims, which can be expensive and time-consuming. In addition, in an infringement proceeding, a court may decide that one or more of our patents is not valid or is unenforceable, or may refuse to stop the other party from using the technology at issue on the grounds that our patents do not cover the technology in question. An adverse result in any litigation or defense proceedings could put one or more of our patents at risk of being invalidated, held unenforceable, or interpreted narrowly and could put our patent applications at risk of not issuing. Defense of these claims, regardless of their merit, would involve substantial litigation expense and would be a substantial diversion of employee resources from our business. In the event of a successful claim of infringement against us, we may have to pay substantial damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees for willful infringement, obtain one or more licenses from third parties, pay royalties or redesign our infringing products, which may be impossible or require substantial time and monetary expenditure.
Interference proceedings provoked by third parties or brought by the USPTO may be necessary to determine the priority of inventions with respect to our patents or patent applications or those of our licensors. An unfavorable outcome could result in a loss of our current patent rights and could require us to cease using the related technology or to attempt to license rights to it from the prevailing party. Our business could be harmed if the prevailing party does not offer us a license on commercially reasonable terms. Litigation or interference proceedings may result in a decision adverse to our interests and, even if we are successful, may result in substantial costs and distract our management and other employees. We may not be able to prevent, alone or with our licensors, misappropriation of our trade secrets or confidential information, particularly in countries where the laws may not protect those rights as fully as in the United States.
Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation. In addition, there could be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments. If securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the price of our common stock.
Obtaining and maintaining our patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural, document submission, fee payment and other requirements imposed by governmental patent agencies, and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated for non-compliance with these requirements.
Periodic maintenance fees on any issued patent are due to be paid to the USPTO and foreign patent agencies in several stages over the lifetime of the patent. The USPTO and various foreign governmental patent agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar provisions during the patent application process. While an inadvertent lapse can in many cases be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules, there are situations in which noncompliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. Noncompliance events that could result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application include, but are not limited to, failure to respond to official actions within prescribed time limits, non-payment of fees and failure to properly legalize and submit formal documents. In such an event, our competitors might be able to enter the market, which would have a material adverse effect on our business.
Issued patents covering our product candidates could be found unpatentable, invalid or unenforceable if challenged in court or the USPTO.
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If we or one of our licensing partners initiate legal proceedings against a third party to enforce a patent covering one of our product candidates, the defendant could counterclaim that the patent covering our product candidate, as applicable, is invalid and/or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the United States, defendant counterclaims alleging invalidity and/or unenforceability are commonplace, and there are numerous grounds upon which a third party can assert invalidity or unenforceability of a patent. Third parties may also raise similar claims before administrative bodies in the United States or abroad, even outside the context of litigation. Such mechanisms include IPR, ex parte re-examination and post grant review in the United States, and equivalent proceedings in foreign jurisdictions (e.g., opposition proceedings). For example, on November 16, 2015, March 18, 2016 and August 5, 2016, one or more anonymous parties filed for ex parte reexaminations of certain patents that we licensed pursuant to our agreement with Cabaret. On December 12, 2016, Kite achieved a favorable outcome in one of these reexaminations: the USPTO maintained the patent with its expiration date unchanged. Such proceedings could result in revocation, truncation of term, or amendment to our patents in such a way that they no longer cover our product, or competitor product, candidates. The outcome following legal assertions of unpatentability, invalidity and unenforceability is unpredictable. With respect to the validity question, for example, we cannot be certain that there is no invalidating prior art, of which we, our patent counsel and the patent examiner were unaware during prosecution. If a defendant were to prevail on a legal assertion of unpatentability, invalidity and/or unenforceability, we would lose at least part, and perhaps all, of the patent protection on our product candidates. Such a loss of patent protection could have a material adverse impact on our business.
Changes in U.S. patent law could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect our products.
As is the case with other biopharmaceutical companies, our success is heavily dependent on intellectual property, particularly patents. Obtaining and enforcing patents in the biopharmaceutical industry involve both technological and legal complexity, and is therefore costly, time-consuming and inherently uncertain. Recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have narrowed the scope of patent protection available in certain circumstances and weakened the rights of patent owners in certain situations. In addition to increasing uncertainty with regard to our ability to obtain patents in the future, this combination of events has created uncertainty with respect to the value of patents, once obtained. Depending on decisions by the U.S. Congress, the federal courts, and the USPTO, the laws and regulations governing patents could change in unpredictable ways that would weaken our ability to obtain new patents or to enforce our existing patents and patents that we might obtain in the future. For example, in the recent case, Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court held that certain claims to DNA molecules are not patentable. While we do not believe that any of the patents owned or licensed by us will be found invalid based on this decision, we cannot predict how future decisions by the courts, the U.S. Congress or the USPTO may impact the value of our patents.
We have limited foreign intellectual property rights and may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights throughout the world.
We have limited intellectual property rights outside the United States, and, in particular, our patents directed to CAR constructs licensed from Cabaret do not extend outside of the United States. Filing, prosecuting and defending patents on product candidates in all countries throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive, and our intellectual property rights in some countries outside the United States can be less extensive than those in the United States. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as federal and state laws in the United States. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent third parties from practicing our inventions in all countries outside the United States, or from selling or importing products made using our inventions in and into the United States or other jurisdictions. Competitors may use our technologies in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patent protection to develop their own products and further, may export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have patent protection, but enforcement is not as strong as that in the United States. These products may compete with our products and our patents or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from competing.
Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property protection, particularly those relating to biopharmaceutical products, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents or marketing of competing products in violation of our proprietary rights generally. Proceedings to enforce our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and our patent applications at risk of not issuing and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be
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commercially meaningful. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop or license.
We may be subject to claims that our employees, consultants or independent contractors have wrongfully used or disclosed confidential information of third parties.
We have received confidential and proprietary information from third parties. In addition, we employ individuals who were previously employed at other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies. We may be subject to claims that we or our employees, consultants or independent contractors have inadvertently or otherwise used or disclosed confidential information of these third parties or our employees’ former employers. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. Even if we are successful in defending against these claims, litigation could result in substantial cost and be a distraction to our management and employees.
JUNO
10-K for Fiscal year ending December 31, 2016
Legal Procedings
USPTO Proceedings
In August 2015, Kite filed a petition with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) for inter partes review of U.S. Patent No. 7,446,190 (the “‘190 Patent”), a patent that we have exclusively licensed from MSK. In February 2016, the USPTO determined to initiate the inter partes review proceedings, in Kite Pharma, Inc. v. Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, Case IPR2015-01719. As the exclusive licensor, we opted to exercise its right to control the defense of the patent in the proceedings. A hearing was held before the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board on October 20, 2016. On December 16, 2016, the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued a final written decision upholding all the claims of this patent. On February 16, 2017, Kite appealed the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s final written decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. We will incur expenses associated with the appeal, which expenses may be substantial. If we are unsuccessful in the appeal and the USPTO’s decision is reversed, one or more of the patent’s claims could be narrowed or invalidated, but we do not expect that this would have a material adverse effect on our business.
In September 2016, Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. filed a petition with the USPTO to initiate a post grant review (“PGR”) of U.S. Patent No. 9,415,105, a patent to which Juno obtained an exclusive license in connection with its acquisition of RedoxTherapies. The matter was assigned case number PGR2016-00042. The patent owner statutorily disclaimed the challenged claims. We have incurred, and may continue to incur, expenses associated with the PGR, which expenses may be substantial. We do not expect this proceeding to have a material adverse effect on our business.
Intellectual Property Litigation
On December 19, 2016, we filed a complaint for declaratory judgment of infringement of U.S. Patent No. 7,446,190 against Kite. The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Delaware. The complaint alleges that Kite’s axicabtagene ciloleucell (KTE-C19) product does or will infringe claims 1-3, 5, 7-9, and 11 of the ‘190 Patent. On February 23, 2017, Kite filed a motion to dismiss the complaint. Patent litigation is a time-consuming and costly process. We may not be successful in enforcing the patent against Kite or Kite may successfully claim that the asserted patent is invalid or unenforceable. Even if we are successful in enforcing the patent against Kite, the litigation process could take years to reach conclusion.