www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2017/11/14/astellas-sues-former-research-partners-claiming.html?ana=RSS%26s%3Darticle_search&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+industry_6+%28Industry+Health+Care%29A Marlborough-based unit of Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma has filed a federal lawsuit accusing two scientists of entering into a collaboration to develop therapeutic stem cells, and then falsely claiming the technology as their own to secure a potentially lucrative patent.
The suit, which was filed Monday in Boston, stems from a 2010 partnership between an Astellas joint venture and the scientists, Xiaofang Wang and Ren-He Xu. According to the complaint, the collaboration focused on developing Astellas’ proprietary technology for creating a type of stem cell that could potentially be used to treat a range of diseases, including multiple sclerosis.
The joint venture provided Wang and Xu with millions of the stem cells, along with instructions on how to create them, so that the scientists could conduct experiments on animals, the complaint says. Wang and Xu were repeatedly told that the information was confidential and proprietary, according to the suit.
Nonetheless, Wang and Xu launched their own company, ImStem Biotechnology, in 2012, while the collaboration was ongoing. They also quietly applied for — and eventually won — a patent covering the technology, without informing the actual inventors at Astellas, according to the complaint. As part of the application process, Wang and Xu signed sworn statements claiming to be “the original and joint inventors of the subject matter,” the complaint says.
The collaboration did not officially end until 2014, when Wang, Xu and the Astellas researchers published a paper about the research.
The complaint argues that the scientists “knowingly interacted with and then defrauded Astellas.” It asks a judge to rule that the patent belongs to the Astellas researchers, and requests unspecified damages.
“Plaintiffs now seek to undo the damage defendants have wrought by their usurpation of plaintiffs’ intellectual property,” the complaint says.
An ImStem spokeswoman referred questions about the lawsuit to Wang and Xu, who did not respond to requests for comment.
The joint venture, called Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine International, or SCRMI, was a partnership between a Marlborough company called Advanced Cell Technology and a Korean biotech. Advanced Cell Technology changed its name to Ocata Therapeutics in 2014. Astellas then acquired Ocata in 2015.
