Chiron Victorious In HCV Test Dispute

The High Court of Justice for England and Wales has granted a permanent injunction against the manufacture and sale of hepatitis C virus immunoassays by Murex Diagnostics and Organon Teknika, part of the Dutch Akzo Nobel group.

The court backed a claim by Chiron that the two other companies had breached one of its UK HCV patents, which covers a wide variety of aspects of the technology, including antigenic HCV polypeptides (regardless of the method of production), HCV antibodies, the use of polypeptides/antibodies in immunoassays, HCV polynucleotides and their use in recombinant protein expression, DNA probe tests and polymerase chain reaction tests.

Chiron and its development partner for the HCV test, Ortho, are pursuing actions against further infringement by Organon and Murex in several areas. On July 25, the District Court in the Hague granted a cross-border European injunction against the manufacture, sale and distribution of HCV immunoassays infringing Chiron's European patent for its technology. Chiron has also filed a lawsuit in Tokyo requesting a preliminary injunction against sales of HCV assays in Japan.