ImClone goes up against patent dispute

USA TODAY, September, 2006 by Julie Schmit

More bad news could be looming for ImClone Systems, the biotech maker at the heart of the Martha Stewart stock scandal. A federal judge is expected to rule, possibly within weeks, on a bitter patent dispute affecting ImClone's sole product, cancer drug Erbitux. One Wall Street biotech analyst, Citigroup's Yaron Werber, has predicted defendants ImClone and Aventis Pharmaceuticals will lose the dispute.

That could cost ImClone tens of millions of dollars a year, delivering an 8% to 24% hit to net income. The patent dispute -- argued over a 10-day trial that ended in July in an often-packed Manhattan courtroom -- pits former colleagues, friends and two giants of science against each other: Michael Sela, 82, a co-developer of multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone, and Joseph...