AMGEN ALLOWED TO PURSUE PATENT SUIT AGAINST ARIAD

Ariad has lost its request for a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by biotechnology company Amgen, which is seeking a declaratory judgment that two of its arthritis treatments do not violate Ariad patents.

Amgen asserts its arthritis drugs Enbrel (etanercept) and Kineret (anakinra) do not violate an Ariad patent covering methods of disease treatment by regulating cell-signaling activity, Ariad said in a statement Sept. 12. Many critical cell functions, such as cell division, are regulated by signals that move around the cell via a system of molecular pathways. Amgen filed the suit, which also claims Ariad's patent is invalid, in April in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

Ariad recently won a similar case, when a federal jury ordered Eli Lilly to pay $65.2 million in damages resulting from a patent suit filed by Ariad and several academic institutions over the cell-signaling technology. Eli Lilly tried unsuccessfully to get the case dismissed in 2003.