In a surprising move, the Supreme Court rejected a bid by a Bristol Myers Squibb unit to reinstate a $1.2 billion award it won in a contentious patent fight with a Gilead Sciences subsidiary over the lucrative market for gene therapies.
However, the decision came just days after the Supreme Court agreed to review a very similar case involving Amgen and two other drugmakers, which essentially involves the same issue, but comes at it from a different legal perspective.
Both cases have been closely watched as vehicles for settling debates over the extent to which a company must describe how to replicate newly invented medicines when applying for patents, notably for biologics. These treatments constitute a highly lucrative market because they are used to help the body fight cancer and a wide array of other diseases — and often carry considerable price tags.
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