University of Wisconsin Ordered to Pay Ex-Partner $32 Million

The University of Wisconsin’s patent-licensing arm must pay Washington University in St. Louis, its former partner in medical research, $31.6 million for breaching a royalties contract related to the sale of an AbbVie Inc. kidney-disease drug.

The judgment, issued Nov. 26 alongside a sealed opinion in federal court in Wilmington, Del., marks the culmination of a rare legal fight involving two universities that had formed a patent-licensing deal with a corporation.

The dispute has its roots in the early 1990s, when researchers at Washington University and Wisconsin began collaborating on treatments of conditions associated with kidney disease. The scientists applied ...