Judge ups Boston Scientific payment to $500M over DES patent infringement

Boston Scientific’s DES patent under investigation. Source: Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation

U.S. District Judge T. John Ward in Texas has added $69.4 million in pre-judgment interest to the $431.9 million a jury ordered Boston Scientific to pay for infringing on a doctor’s patent on drug-eluting stents.

Attorneys for the plaintiff Bruce Saffran, MD, of New Jersey, said this type of interest is “not routinely granted” and is at the discretion of the presiding judge. The interest dates back to when Boston Scientific first infringed on the patent in question.

Last week, the jury found that Boston Scientific’s Taxus Express and Taxus Liberte drug-eluting stent products infringe Saffran's patent and that the patent is valid.

Boston Scientific said the verdict is unsupported by both the evidence and the law, and it will seek to overturn the verdict in post-trial motions before the district court. If unsuccessful, it said it will appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Saffran, a radiologist who obtained a patent for a drug-delivery device in 1997, is not asking to stop sales of the product, but does have a similar case pending against Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) subsidiary Cordis, according to his lawyer Eric Albritton.

The suit against J&J involves its Cypher stent on Raptor over-the-wire delivery system and Cypher stent on Raptorrail rapid exchange delivery system. A spokeswoman for Cordis told FDA News that the lawsuit against that company is “very different” from the Boston Scientific suit, but she did not elaborate.