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How Amgen Lost the PCSK9 Patent War
In 2014, Amgen sued Sanofi and Regeneron to claim ownership of an entire class of cholesterol drugs. Nine years later, the Supreme Court ruled against them - but they won where it mattered most.
Justice Gorsuch’s opinion for a unanimous Court grounded the decision in patent law’s essential bargain: inventors receive temporary monopolies in exchange for disclosing their inventions sufficiently to advance human knowledge. Market dominance through delay: Repatha’s global sales lead over Praluent widened from $25 million in 2016 to $1.5 billion by 2024, as litigation uncertainty deterred formulary adoption and physician prescribing of the competing drug. These approaches hold promise because they address the root problem: current patent law provides identical protection regardless of genuine contribution, creating incentives for companies like Amgen to pursue defensive intellectual property litigation.
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