CareDx gets $96 million jury win for Natera overturned

Natera

24/02/2025 23:38

By Blake Brittain
       Feb 24 (Reuters) -   A federal judge on Monday threw
out a $96 million jury verdict against genetic testing company
CareDX  CDNA.O  that rival Natera  NTRA.O  had won after a 2024
trial over patent rights in DNA testing technology for kidney
transplants.  
    U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly determined that the
patents Natera had accused CareDx of infringing were invalid.
    A Natera spokesperson said that the company disagrees with
the decision and will pursue "all available remedies, including
appeal."
    CareDx attorney Edward Reines of Weil, Gotshal & Manges said
the decision was "the right outcome on the law and for organ
transplant patients."
    The case is one of several contentious legal disputes among
competitors in the genomics industry, which involves the science
of the human genome. The global genomics market was worth nearly
$34 billion in 2023 and could grow to $157 billion by 2033,
according to a report from biopharmaceutical news outlet
BioSpace.
    Austin, Texas-based Natera said in the lawsuit that CareDx's
AlloSure and AlloSeq kidney transplant tests infringed two
patents related to using cell-free DNA to assess a person's risk
of rejecting a transplant. A jury said last year that CareDx
infringed one of the patents and awarded Natera $96.3 million in
damages.
    Connolly said on Monday that both patents were invalid
because they failed to adequately describe their inventions.
    Brisbane, California-based CareDx won a $45 million
false-advertising verdict against Natera in a related case in
2022. Connolly overturned that award in 2023, though he agreed
that Natera had misleadingly advertised its Prospera kidney
transplant tests as more effective than AlloSure.
    The patent case is Natera Inc v. CareDx Inc, U.S. District
Court for the District of Delaware, No. 1:20-cv-00038.
    For Natera: Kevin Johnson, Sandra Haberny, Drew Holmes and
Jeff Nardinelli of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan
    For CareDx: Edward Reines, Derek Walter and Sutton Ansley of
Weil, Gotshal & Manges
     
    Read more:
    CareDx owes Natera $96 mln in genetic-testing patent case,
US jury says

 (Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington)