Bavarian Nordic A/S Further Enforces its Intellectual Property Rights Against Acambis
Bavarian Nordic A/S announced today that it has filed a patent infringement action against Acambis plc and Acambis Inc. at the Commercial Court in Vienna, Austria, the country where Acambis’ MVA-based smallpox vaccine (MVA3000) is manufactured.
The legal action has been initiated to enforce Bavarian Nordic’s patent recently granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) which covers the company’s MVA-BN® technology. The European patent (EP 1 335 987 B1) granted on 28 December, 2005 gives Bavarian Nordic the sole right to produce, market and sell MVA-BN®, and derivatives thereof with the same biological characteristics and safety profile as well as recombinant viruses thereof in Europe. This patent belongs to the same patent family as the company’s earlier-issued US patents (US 6,761,893 and US 6,913,752).
If successful, Bavarian Nordic will be in a position to stop Acambis from engaging in the manufacturing, marketing and sale of any infringing MVA smallpox vaccine products in Austria and to seek monetary damages.
Bavarian Nordic and Acambis are involved in a bidding process to supply millions of doses of MVA smallpox vaccine products to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the BioShield programme. According to Acambis’ statements, their MVA-based smallpox vaccine is produced in Austria by their contract manufacturing partner.
Commenting on the legal action filed Peter Wulff, President and CEO of Bavarian Nordic, said: "We have substantially invested our resources to develop our MVA-BN® vaccine products. Bavarian Nordic’s efforts have led to the creation of valuable intellectual property, including proprietary material and the patent granted by the EPO protects the unique properties of MVA-BN®. This legal action, along with those we have already instituted in the US, is being taken to protect our assets."
