A Texas court has ruled that Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Cordis infringed three patents held by interventional radiologist Bruce Saffran when the company developed its bestselling line of drug coated stents. Saffran was a resident at Massachusetts General Hospital when he filed patents for the idea of coating bare-metal stents in drugs that gradually dissolve in the body, delivering medicine directly to the site of implant. He discovered years later that Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific were developing their own line of drug-coated stents, which have since earned the devicemakers billions in sales.
In a brief statement, Cordis said it plans to appeal the court ruling. "The company believes this is contrary to both the law and the facts set forward in the case,'' Cordis noted. "We will ask the judge to overturn this verdict and if unsuccessful, we plan to appeal the verdict.''
This isn't the first time Saffran has won a pay-out for patent infringement. In 2008, a court ordered Boston Scientific to pay $431 million for violating Saffran's patent with the development of its Taxus stent, as the law firm Dickstein Shapiro notes. Boston Sci appealed, and the two sides eventually settled for $50 million.
- see the Dickstein Shapiro release
- here's the full story from NJ.com