Merck wins record US$2.5b patent verdict against Gilead

New York

GILEAD Sciences Inc - the biopharmaceutical giant with a market capitalisation of US$100 billion, which Singapore's Temasek Holdings owns 1.05 per cent of, was told by a US federal jury to pay US$2.54 billion to Merck & Co for using a patented invention as the basis for its blockbuster drugs for the potentially deadly liver disease hepatitis C. This is the biggest patent-infringement verdict in US history.

The jury in Wilmington, Delaware, deliberated for less than two hours and rejected Gilead's arguments that Merck's patent is invalid. The judge in the case had already decided that Merck's patent was infringed by Gilead's Sovaldi and Harvoni, which account for more than half of the drugmaker's revenue.