Plaintiff

GenPharm International, Inc.

1 case as plaintiff.

Cases
1
Active
0
1 closed
Filed
—
Also appears as a defendant in 1 case → View as defendant

Company profile

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GenPharm International, Inc. was a U.S. biotechnology company founded in 1989 and headquartered in Palo Alto / San Jose, California. It was a privately held, venture-backed company (investors included Abingworth, Atlas Venture, Avalon Ventures and Collagen Corporation) that had attempted a public offering but shelved it amid litigation. It is not related to the similarly named Genpharm Services (a Dubai-based rare-disease market-access firm) or Genpharm Inc. (Canada).

Products / operations. GenPharm developed transgenic-animal technology for producing fully human monoclonal antibodies. Its core platform was the HuMAb-Mouse, a mouse strain engineered with human immunoglobulin genes to generate high-affinity, fully human antibodies for therapeutic use. GenPharm did not market drugs; its business was technology licensing and antibody-discovery collaborations. It signed a reported ~$57 million licensing deal with Centocor for HuMAb-Mouse technology, and also held patents (licensed to third parties such as Lexicon Genetics) covering gene-targeting/"knockout" methods.

Corporate history. Medarex, Inc. (NASDAQ: MEDX) acquired GenPharm in October 1997 for up to approximately $62–65 million in Medarex stock. GenPharm thereafter operated as a wholly owned Medarex subsidiary and continued to be named as a contracting party in Medarex licensing agreements. Bristol-Myers Squibb acquired Medarex for $2.4 billion in 2009, making GenPharm a BMS subsidiary; its antibody technology underlies products including Stelara (ustekinumab).

Patent-litigation posture. The case data reflects an operating biotech company engaged in two-way IP litigation over its core platform — one suit as plaintiff, one as defendant — not an NPE asserting an acquired portfolio. GenPharm sued Abgenix, Inc. (plaintiff) after receiving U.S. Patents 5,545,806 and 5,569,825 on transgenic human-antibody mice. In the mirror-image case, Cell Genesys, Inc. sued GenPharm (defendant) in 1994, alleging theft of trade secrets related to mouse antibody-gene inactivation.

Notable context. Both suits were resolved in March 1997 by a comprehensive cross-license among GenPharm, Cell Genesys, Abgenix, Xenotech L.P. and Japan Tobacco, under which Cell Genesys/Japan Tobacco paid GenPharm up to ~$30 million. That settlement cleared the way for the Medarex acquisition later that year. The tracked cases ceased after the 1997 settlement.

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GenPharm International, Inc. v. Abgenix, Inc.

settled
Terminated:
1997-03-27

GenPharm International filed an infringement counter-suit against Abgenix, Inc. in early 1997, reportedly asserting US 5,545,806 and US 5,569,825. The litigation was settled on March 27, 1997 through a comprehensive cross-license among Cell Genesys, Abgenix, Xenotech L.P., Japan Tobacco Inc., and GenPharm, and all litigation was dismissed. US 5,625,126 was not named in the contemporaneous account and issued after the settlement.