ImClone Can't Shake Sam Waksal's Legacy
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Despite the Martha Stewart-Sam Waksal insider trading scandal in 2001, ImClone, the company founded by Waksal in 1984, is doing well and managed to sell $1.1 billion of its anti-cancer drug Erbitux in 2006. Erbitux is a monoclonal antibody that is approved to treat colorectal cancer and certain head and neck cancers. ImClone co-markets Erbitux, its only product, with Bristol Myers Squibb (US) and Merck KGA (Europe).
In September, ImClone agreed to pay over $65 million in cash to Waltham, Mass.-based Repligen - a portion of that was designated to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - to get royalty-free rights to U.S. Patent No. 4,663,281 and U.S. Patent No. 5,665,578. Repligen had contended that ImClone infringed both patents when developing and manufacturing Erbitux for commercial purposes.
Now, here is where it gets interesting. Repligen gained the rights to Patent No. 5,665,578 from Abbott Laboratories via a sublicensing agreement. Although Repligen settled with ImClone over the disputed patent, Abbot has not.
Late last week, Abbot filed papers in federal court requesting a face-to-face interview with Waksal who is currently serving a seven-year term in the Otisville Correctional Facility in New York. Abbot contends that Sam “played a central role in numerous issues significant to this [patent] litigation.” ImClone is not opposing the request. I guess ImClone knows a lot more about Sam than we do!
