Pfizer, Brigham Young University neurology, autoimmune news
Pfizer said it reached an "amicable" agreement with the university to settle a 2006 suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah related to Celebrex celecoxib, a cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitor. As part of the settlement, the university will establish a Dan Simmons Chair. Simmons is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the university and a plaintiff in the suit. Details of the settlement were not disclosed. Pfizer, which recorded a $450 million charge in its 1Q12 earnings in anticipation of the settlement, said in a statement that it was pleased to resolve the suit.
The university filed suit in 2006 alleging that Monsanto Co., which later changed its name to Pharmacia Corp., acted in bad faith when it breached a 1991 research agreement with Simmons and the university under which Simmons directed research to isolate a COX-2 selective NSAID. Under the agreement, Brigham Young was to profit from any patentable results of the research, but the university alleged that Monsanto fraudulently terminated the agreement and misappropriated Simmons' work to develop Celebrex. The university had requested a jury trial and was seeking damages. Pfizer acquired Pharmacia in a stock deal in 2002 (see BioCentury, July 22, 2002). ...