Court supports Immunomedics patent

Biopharmaceutical firm Immunomedics of Morris Plains, NJ, announced last month that the District Court in the Hague upheld the company's European patent when it dismissed a legal action brought by Hoffman LaRoche. Basil, Switzerland-based LaRoche filed the action in response to an infringement suit Immunomedics brought against it last fall. Immunomedics' European patent is valid in nine countries and covers CEA-specific antibodies as well as immunoassays which use CEA antibodies, according to the company's patent attorney, Bernhard Saxe of Foley & Lardner in Washington, DC.

In other Immunomedics news, the company last month reported that it has conferred a royalty-bearing, nonexclusive license to Dako A/S of Glostrup, Denmark, for its worldwide patents covering antibodies to CEA. Dako will sell the antibodies to pathology laboratories that stain tumor specimens for CEA.