One Amgen patent out in EPO suit

AMGN said that Judge William Young of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Friday issued a preliminary ruling in AMGN's 1997 patent infringement suit against TKTX and AVE, granting a motion by Transkaryotic Therapies (TKTX) and partner Aventis (AVE) for noninfringement of AMGN's U.S. Patent No. 5,618,698. The patent covers a process for producing biologically active EPO by transforming or transfecting a mammalian host cell with an isolated DNA sequence encoding the mature EPO amino acid sequence. According to AMGN, Young found that AMGN did not prove that AVE and TKTX literally infringe the patent.

AMGN also said that the court held that TKTX and AVE's GA-EPO does not literally fall within the scope of AMGN's U.S. Patent No. 5,621,080 covering the mature EPO sequence. According to AMGN, GA-EPO still may infringe the '080 patent if it is equivalent to the mature EPO covered in the patent. AMGN also said that Young denied the partners' motion for noninfringement of AMGN's U.S. Patent No. 5,547,933 covering a non-naturally occurring erythropoietin glycoprotein product having the in vivo biological activity of causing bone marrow cells to increase production of reticulocytes and red blood cells and having glycosylation which differs from that of human urinary erythropoietin. TKTX was up $11.188 (35 percent) to $42.875 on Friday, while AMGN was down $3.063 to $62.625. ...