Assay ruling brings a sigh of relief

A U.S. appeals court last week overturned a jury verdict in a 1996 patent infringement suit filed by Sibia Neurosciences Inc. against Cadus Pharmaceutical Corp. The decision may have come too late to save KDUS, but it spells relief for many in the industry who use cell-based assays to screen candidate drug compounds.

Late in 1998, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California determined that KDUS infringed Sibia's U.S. Patent No. 5,401,629 covering the use of a biological response generated by a reporter gene to identify compounds that interact with cell surface proteins (see BioCentury, Jan. 4, 1999). The victory was Pyrrhic for Sibia, as the protracted dispute proved fatal for both companies. Sibia sold itself to Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK, Whitehouse Station, N.J.) in 1999, and KDUS remains as a shell...