Patent Law Practice Center

Coalition for Affordable Drugs IPR against Juxtapid gets “green light”

The Coalition for Affordable Drugs, the entity backed by patent renegades Kyle Bass and Erich Spangenberg, recently won two more victories at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).  This time Bass and Spangenberg obtained favorable inter partes review (IPR) institution decisions on two petitions filed against the University of Pennsylvania, which challenged patents covering Juxtapid. Juxtapid is a drug that slows cholesterol production thereby making it easier for the body to remove remaining cholesterol from the bloodstream. To read these institution decisions see IPR2015-01835 and IPR2015-01836. Because the Board did not find it necessary to construe claim terms at the institution stage, both decisions are mirror images of one another.

The patents in question, U.S. Patent No. 7,932,268 and U.S. Patent No. 8,618,135, relate to “the surprising discovery that one may treat an individual who has hyperlipidemia and/or hypercholesterolemia with an MTP inhibitor in a manner that results in the individual not experiencing side-effects normally associated with the inhibitor, or experiencing side-effects to a lesser degree.”

Ultimately, the Board determined that the petitioner demonstrated that the claims challenged were likely invalid because they were obvious. The case will now proceed through the administrative trial. There were, however, several issues that came up in the institution decision that warrant consideration.

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