BioCentury
ARTICLE | Company News

Gilead, Roche infectious news

June 17, 2013 7:00 AM UTC

Gilead disclosed in an SEC filing that it submitted in April a response to arbitration initiated by Roche alleging the pharma has an exclusive license to sofosbuvir under a 2004 deal between Roche's Hoffman-La Roche Inc. and Pharmasset Inc. granting the pharma rights to develop PSI-6130, a cytidine analog and its prodrugs, to treat HCV infection. Roche claims sofosbuvir, a prodrug of a uridine monophosphate analog, is a prodrug of PSI-6130. Roche also claims that because it has exclusive rights to sofosbuvir, it also has an exclusive license to a patent covering sofosbuvir, and that Gilead will infringe that patent by selling products containing sofosbuvir. Gilead, which gained sofosbuvir through its 2012 acquisition of Pharmasset, said Roche's claims are without merit. Roche and Gilead declined to comment (see BioCentury, Jan. 23, 2012). ...