Merck Wins Record $2.5 Billion Patent Verdict Against Gilead
- Firm entitled to royalties on Gilead’s Hep C drugs, jury says
- Patent-infringement decision is largest in U.S. history
An employee monitors Euthyrox hypothyroid treatment tablets as they pass through a blister pack packaging machine inside Merck KGaA's pharmaceutical laboratories at the company's headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany, on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016.
Photographer: Martin Leissl/BloombergGilead Sciences Inc. was told by a federal jury to pay $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 -- the biggest patent-infringement verdict in U.S. 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 the drugmaker’s revenue.