Novartis Can Pursue Challenge to AbbVie Patent on Imbruvica

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has agreed to review the validity of AbbVie patent 9,795,604 for cancer drug Imbruvica, according to status change notice on the agency’s electronic docket.

• The patent covers a way to treat a condition called “graft versus host disease” that patients can develop after receiving a stem cell transplant.
• Novartis’s Sandoz argued the patent didn’t cover a new invention, because the underlying drug was known a decade before the filing of the patent application.
• AbbVie’s Pharmacyclics said that numerous drugs had been tested to treat the condition but failed and, prior to its invention, ...