Bavarian Nordic files patent infringement suit against Oxford BioMedica

Bavarian Nordic has filed a patent infringement suit against Oxford BioMedica plc, Biomedica, Inc., and Oxford BioMedica Ltd., in the United States District Court of the Southern District of California.

Bavarian Nordic owns several United States patents relating to an attenuated strain of the company's core technology, MVA-BN(R), which is the basis for its innovative smallpox vaccine, IMVAMUNE(R). MVA-BN(R) also holds promise as a vector for delivering recombinant vaccines.

Bavarian Nordic asserts three patents as a basis for its infringement action, which are U.S. Patent No. 6,761,893, U.S. Patent No. 6,913,752 and U.S. Patent No. 7,335,364.

The claim in this case is that the defendants have infringed Bavarian Nordic's patents by commercializing the patented technology in ways that have yielded large payments from Sanofi-Aventis under the agreement between them for the development and commercialization of TroVax(R).

The legal action versus Oxford BioMedica does not change Bavarian Nordic's previous announced financial guidance for 2008.

Anders Hedegaard, President & CEO of Bavaran Nordic, said: "The initiation of this infringement action is a necessary step to enforce our intellectual property rights. We have built a strong patent portfolio on the MVA technology, which we seek to utilize to expand and support our business through licensing agreements. However if these cannot be obtained, we will vigorously defend our IP position to prevent infringement."