William_Potter/iStock via Getty Images Puma Biotechnology ( NASDAQ: PBYI ) quickly plunged 25% after a court ruled that some patents are invalid in a longstanding patent dispute with AstraZeneca over cancer drug Tagrisso. US District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly ruled the patents invalid on Wednesday, according to a court filing.
The court ruled patents '314 and `162 as invalid. "For the reasons discussed above, the Court grants AstraZeneca's motion for judgement as a matter of law that the patents-in-suit are invalid due to lack of enablement and lack of written description of the claimed invention but otherwise overrules AstraZeneca's motion," Kennelly wrote in the opinion. The patents in question, known as the '314 and '162 patents, are exclusively licensed to Puma Biotech ( PBYI ) which it uses in its breast cancer drug Nerlynx (neratinib).
Last week a federal judge upheld a jury verdict from May that found AstraZeneca's ( AZN ) cancer drug Tagrisso (osimertinib) infringes on two patents held by Pfizer's ( PFE ) Wyeth unit. Although Puma was dismissed as a co-plaintiff in a case in March, it maintains contractual rights to recover monetary damages in the AstraZeneca ( AZN ) litigation, and those contractual rights are unaffected by the court’s March order. In September 2021, Pfizer's ( PFE ) unit Wyeth and Puma filed a case against AstraZeneca ( AZN ), seeking damages for alleged infringement on Puma's exclusive license to Wyeth's patents with regard to Tagrisso's composit.