After nearly 9 years of legal back-and-forth, Enzo Biochem ($ENZ) is still reaping rewards from its lawsuit against Life Technologies ($LIFE), picking up another $12.4 million in damages and bringing its total haul to more than $61 million, the company said.
The lawsuit stems from a dispute between Enzo and Applera, which later became Life, over patents tied to gene sequencing. In 2012, Enzo convinced a jury that Life's products violated its intellectual property, and, last year, a federal judge ordered Life to pay out $48.6 million in damages. The latest addition is designed to cover prejudgment interest, Enzo said, and the company is petitioning for a postinterest payout that could add a few more million dollars to its haul.
Life had no comment on the latest ruling, but the company has said it disagrees with the initial verdict and is weighing its options.
In the original suit against Applera, filed in 2004, Enzo and co-plaintiff Yale University alleged that the company stepped on their intellectual property tied to sequencing and molecular diagnostic development. In 2008, Applera merged with Invitrogen in a $6.7 billion deal, giving birth to Life.
And while Life's management inherited the legal fight from a previous company, if the proceedings drag on much further, it'll likely become someone else's problem: Thermo Fisher ($TMO) expects to close its $13.6 billion acquisition of Life in the next few months.
Enzo is working through similar lawsuits against Roche Diagnostics ($RHHBY), PerkinElmer ($PKI), LabCorp ($LH), Affymetrix ($AFFY) and others.
- read the statement