Federal Jury Deadlocked in Genentech Protropin Case
A federal jury was unable to reach a verdict in a patent infringement lawsuit brought by the University of California (UC; San Francisco) against Genentech Inc. (South San Francisco, CA) relating to the company's human growth hormone product, Protropin. The nine-member jury was deadlocked in the case, in which UC alleged that Genentech's manufacture and sale of Protropin infringed UC's patent under the doctrine of equivalents.
In the trial, UC and Peter Seeburg, one of the inventors of UC's patent, claimed that Genentech researchers had not independently performed the work on human growth hormone as they published it in 1979 in the scientific journal Nature. Genentech and the co-authors of the Nature publication adamantly deny that claim.
On May 17, several of the co-authors of the 1979 Nature publication describing Genentech's independent development of human growth hormone sent a letter to both Nature and Science categorically denying Seeburg's testimony that the data submitted in the Nature paper were false. Genentech and the co-authors asked the editors of Nature to review the multiple lab notebooks that chronicle the work done by Genentech scientist David Goeddel and his colleagues some 20 years ago that dispute this assertion. The notebooks contain actual photographs of the growth hormone DNA successfully prepared by Genentech's researchers that show a unique "fingerprint" that identifies the DNA as Genentech's.
The case was submitted to the jury on Thursday, May 20, after a six-week trial in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. UC filed the patent infringement suit against Genentech in 1990. The judge in the case has not yet decided Genentech's separate claim that UC defrauded the US Patent and Trademark Office when it obtained the patent. If the court rules in favor of Genentech on this claim, it would render UC's patent unenforceable.
Protropin was the first drug to be marketed by Genentech after the company's founding in 1976. Protropin is approved for the treatment of growth hormone deficiency in children.
Genentech Inc. is a biotechnology company that discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets human pharmaceuticals for significant unmet medical needs.
For more information: Genentech Inc., One DNA Way, South San Francisco, CA 94080-4990. Tel: 650-225-1000. Fax: 650-225-6000.