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TMCNet: ImClone Paying $60M To Settle Remaining Erbitux Patent Dispute

[December 07, 2007]

ImClone Paying $60M To Settle Remaining Erbitux Patent Dispute

(BioWorld Today Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Three months after it agreed to shell out $65 million in cash to Repligen Corp. to resolve a patent dispute relating to cancer drug Erbitux, ImClone Systems Inc. reached an agreement with the remaining party, Rehovot, Israel-based Yeda Research and Development Co. Ltd.

Terms of that agreement call for ImClone and patent licensor Sanofi-Aventis, of Paris, to each pay Yeda $60 million in cash for full and final settlement of all claims in the matter. Yeda is the licensing arm of Israel-based Weizman Institute of Science.

The deal puts to rest the worldwide litigation related to U.S. Patent No. 6,127,866 and its foreign counterparts, and concludes ongoing litigation related to Erbitux.

In September, ImClone agreed to fork over $65 million in cash to Waltham, Mass.-based Repligen - a portion of that was designated to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - to get royalty-free rights to U.S. Patent No. 4,663,281 and U.S. Patent No. 5,665,578. Repligen gained rights to that latter patent from Abbott Park, Ill.-based Abbott. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 11, 2007.)

New York-based ImClone now will license worldwide rights to the technology included in the '866 patent in exchange for a contingent payment to Yeda in the form of a low single-digit royalty on sales both in and outside the U.S. ImClone will pay Sanofi a low single-digit royalty on sales outside the U.S. The company's worldwide royalty rate for Erbitux sales remains unchanged.

Erbitux (cetuximab), a monoclonal antibody designed to inhibit the epidermal growth factor receptor, is marketed for metastatic colorectal and head and neck cancers. Sales of Erbitux, which is partnered in the U.S. with New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and with Darmstadt, Germany-based Merck KGaA in Europe, totaled more than $1 billion in 2006.

Shares of ImClone (NASDAQ:IMCL) closed at $42.47 Friday, up 13 cents. n

Copyright 2007 Thomson BioWorld, All Rights Reserved.

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