Bristol-Myers Sues AstraZeneca for Profits Lost to Imfinzi Sales

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. filed a lawsuit seeking profits lost to sales of AstraZeneca PLC’s Imfinzi, a cancer treatment that enhances the immune response and which Bristol-Myers alleges infringes eight of its patents.

The suit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, centers on competing immunotherapies. Bristol-Myers says it invented ways of treating cancer by using antibodies that block cancer cells from activating a “checkpoint” that would prevent an immune system from destroying cancer cells.

The company sells Opdivo, which it says it developed earlier than AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi. Both are anti-PD-L1 products that use antibodies ...