NEW YORK, Aug 26 — US biotech Gilead Sciences Inc escaped a US$1.2 billion (RM5 billion) penalty after a US appeals court today found that relevant parts of a patent on a cancer therapy owned by a Bristol Myers Squibb unit that were the basis for a previous ruling and fine were invalid.

The ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit threw out the verdict in a case involving accusations that Yescarta, the CAR-T cell cancer immunotherapy from Gilead’s Kite Pharma unit, infringed on patents for a similar therapy from Bristol’s Juno Therapeutics.

Last year, a federal judge increased the damages that Gilead would pay to Bristol Myers Squibb to US$1.2 billion in the patent infringement case.

Gilead and Kite’s attorney Josh Rosenkranz of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the attorney for Bristol Myers and Juno, Morgan Chu of Irell & Manella.

A jury in 2019 found that Kite willfully infringed and awarded Juno and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, which licenses the patent to Juno, US$778 million. US District Judge Philip Gutierrez increased the award to US$1.2 billion in Los Angeles federal court.

Memorial Sloan Kettering did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Chief US Circuit Judge Kimberly Moore wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel that the relevant parts of Juno’s patent were invalid because they lacked a sufficient written description and details.

Moore was joined by Circuit Judges Sharon Prost and Kathleen O’Malley in the ruling.

During a July oral argument, Moore compared the patent’s description to trying to identify a specific car by saying it has four wheels. — Reuters