Gilead To Pay $200 Mln To Merck, Ionis Pharma In Hepatitis C Drug Patent Suit

(RTTNews) - Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK), known as MSD outside the U.S. and Canada, said Thursday that a federal jury has ordered Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) to pay the company and Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (IONS) $200 million in damages for infringement of hepatitis C drug patents. However, the amount is far less than $2 billion demanded by Merck.

Merck said that a jury in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California found that Gilead infringed Merck and Ionis Pharma's patents for compounds and methods used to develop sofosbuvir-based medicines for the treatment of patients with hepatitis C virus or HCV infection. This includes Gilead's blockbuster drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni.

The jury awarded the damages as compensation for infringement through December 31, 2015. Merck noted that the court will hold a separate proceeding on royalties owed by Gilead for all infringing product sold starting January 1, 2016.

The jury's verdict upholds patent protections that are essential to the development of new medical treatments. The compounds and methods at issue in this case facilitated significant advances in the treatment of patients with HCV infection and were appropriately granted the patents Nos. 7,105,499 and 8,481,712.

On Tuesday, Ionis Pharma said that the jury found in favor of Merck and Ionis in the patent dispute related to Gilead's sofosbuvir-based medicines for the treatment of hepatitis C virus, including Sovladi and Harvoni.

The jury found in favor of Merck and Ionis Pharma upholding all claims from the two patents in the case, including two methods and eight composition of matter claims.

Ionis Pharma noted that it will receive 20 perent of the damages awarded to Merck that exceed the costs incurred by Merck to conduct the litigation and Ionis will also receive 20 percent of all future payments.