Valentis Inc announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, PolyMASC Pharmaceuticals Plc, has received a ruling in its patent infringement litigation against Alza Corporation, a unit of Johnson & Johnson.The ruling received followed a Markman hearing, in which the court decided the meaning of certain terms used in the patent claims at issue in the litigation. In the ruling, the district court adopted the claim interpretation proposed by Alza.
The Company intends to seek immediate disposition of the case at the district court level in order to bring the claim construction issues up for review by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.As a result of this ruling, the trial currently scheduled for the week of December 9, 2002, will not take place.
PolyMASC initiated infringement proceedings against Alza in the United States in April 2001, for infringement of U.S. Patent Number 6,132,763, based on Alza's manufacturing and selling of Doxil and Caelyx, PEGylated-liposome products encapsulating the drug doxorubicin.Doxil is currently approved and marketed in the United States for Kaposi's sarcoma and refractory ovarian cancer by Ortho Biotech, a subsidiary in the Johnson and Johnson family of companies.The same product, Caelyx is approved and marketed in Europe for the same indications by Schering Plough.
PolyMASC has also initiated infringement proceedings in Germany, against SP Labo N.V., SP Europe and Essex Pharma GmbH, all members of the Schering Plough Group. The suit alleges infringement of European Patent Nos. EP572,049B1 and EP445,131B1, based on the sales of Caelyx. The European proceedings are not affected by the present ruling in the United States.