Interest Pushes Humira Award Up To $1.85B

By Brendan Pierson

Law360, New York (December 18, 2009) -- A federal judge has ordered Abbott Laboratories to pay Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc. interest of nearly $176 million on the record $1.67 billion judgment he awarded the Johnson & Johnson unit after a jury found that Abbott's arthritis drug Humira infringed a Centocor patent.

In a final judgment entered Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Judge T. John Ward said he calculated the interest beginning on the date the patent-in-suit was issued, July 4, 2006, using the average 90-day commercial paper rate set by the Federal Reserve.

Judge Ward also granted a motion by Centocor, filed Dec. 1, to sever into a new case its claims for damages accruing after the jury verdict. The judge ordered Centocor to file a complaint in that case, which has been assigned case number 2:09-cv-00389, within 10 days of his order.

An attorney for Centocor declined to comment on the case. An attorney for Abbott could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.

A jury awarded Centocor $1.17 billion in lost profits and $504 million in royalties in June after finding that Abbott willfully infringed four claims of U.S. Patent Number 7,070,775.

Abbott then moved for the court to rule that the '775 patent was unenforceable due to inequitable conduct and prosecution laches and that the asserted claims were indefinite because those skilled in the art would not understand the bounds of the claims. Judge Ward denied that motion in November.

Centocor and New York University, which were co-issued the '775 patent, filed suit in April 2007, claiming that Abbott’s Humira, a tumor necrosis factor blocker, infringed the patent.

NYU and Centocor alleged in their suit that the '775 patent, titled “Recombinant A2-specific TNFα specific antibodies,” covers antibodies and antibody fragments that are used to treat a number of conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, a form of arthritis affecting the spine.

Humira was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2002 and is known generically as adalimumab. It is Abbott's most popular drug, netting the company more than $4.5 billion in sales in 2008.

Centocor makes a competing drug, Remicade, which is made partially from mouse antibodies. Remicade had sales of $3.75 billion in 2008, according to the company.

The patent-in-suit is U.S. Patent Number 7,070,775.

Centocor and NYU are represented by Woodcock Washburn LLP and Sayles Werbner PC.

Abbott Laboratories is represented by Beck Redden & Secrest LLP, WilmerHale LLP and general counsel.

The case is Centocor Inc. et al. v. Abbott Laboratories, case number 07-cv-00139, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

--Additional reporting by Allison Grande, Ryan Davis, Tina Peng and Erin Coe