Bavarian Nordic A/S Enforces its Intellectual Property Rights Against Acambis plc and Acambis Inc.
Bavarian Nordic A/S announced today that it has filed a patent infringement action against Acambis plc’s MVA smallpox vaccine products at the U.S. International Trade Commission based in Washington DC. If successful, Bavarian Nordic will be in a position to either stop Acambis from engaging in the importation of any infringing MVA smallpox vaccine products into the USA, or seek a royalty for each infringing dose of MVA smallpox vaccine imported to the USA.
At the same time, Bavarian Nordic announced that it has filed a misappropriation of trade secrets case against Acambis plc and Acambis Inc. in the U.S. federal district court based in the state of Delaware. According to the complaint, without permission from Bavarian Nordic, Acambis received a Bavarian Nordic proprietary MVA-strain and dosing information, and used them to develop a competing MVA smallpox vaccine product. Bavarian Nordic is seeking unspecified monetary damages and injunctive relief. 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.
Commenting on the legal actions 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 two patents issued by the USPTO covering the unique properties of MVA-BN®. These legal actions are being taken to protect our assets."
