Life Sciences & Medical Device Litigation
We routinely engage in bet the company litigation for life science, pharmaceutical and medical device companies. With our deep expertise in intellectual property, regulatory, clinical trials, and collaborations, our seasoned trial lawyers can bring to bear a depth of expertise that will maximize your chances of success. We have handled life science cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, U.S. Federal District Courts, state courts, the International Trade Commission, European national courts, and arbitration forums.
Our Intellectual Property Department comprises 190 attorneys dedicated to intellectual property. Many of our attorneys have advanced degrees, including PhDs in relevant life science disciplines. We have handled life science disputes both in the United States and Europe in trial courts, administrative forums, and before arbitral panels. We focus our resources up front to develop a streamlined and focused strategy that takes advantage of McDermott’s expertise. Our practitioners then work from the beginning to prepare the case for trial. Notably, we have the IP trial expertise to effectively advocate your position before juries, judges and tribunals.
For example, in a major victory for Integra LifeSciences against Merck KGaA, we obtained a judgment for the client, Integra, that required Merck to pay significant damages to Integra for patent infringement. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it declined to review the evidence itself but rather sent the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to determine whether the evidence presented in the case was sufficient to support the jury's verdict in Integra's favor. This suit was of significant importance to the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries to provide guidance on the scope of the clinical trial development exemption.
Our Products Liability and Commercial Litigation Group is one of the largest in the United States. We have equivalent Products Liability capability in the UK and Germany. We have particular experience with multidistrict, multi-plaintiff medico-pharmaceutical litigation and genetically modified organism litigation, as well as with cases involving theophylline, asbestos, blood products, tobacco and medical devices. We regularly assist in the preparation of scientific expert opinion and testimony.
For example, in the Fen-Phen diet drug litigation, we successfully led and defended all aspects of one of the largest alleged mass torts in history. We defended over 20,000 claims in every U.S. state and in Canada and served as lead counsel for the phentermine defendants in consolidated multidistrict federal litigation.
Other representative matters our attorneys have handled include:
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Represented a large medical device manufacturer in six jury trials
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Represented a major biotechnology company to defend against a patent suit directed to protein expression
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Enforced patents claiming peptide compositions and methods of use and nucleic acid diagnostics
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Enforced patents directed to radiolabeled antibodies and their use
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Enforced patents directed to a specific growth protein
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Prosecuted an inventorship dispute over a method used in the Human Genome Project
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Served as national counsel in the StarLink corn litigation for the largest producer of a genetically modified corn
Contacts
- William Gaede
+1 650 813 5035
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