Eli Lilly takes a hit in patent case

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Released Wednesday, the ruling is latest black eye for Lilly in a case the that stems from its broken partnership with Emisphere to develop a pill form of Lilly's injectible bone-strengthening drug Forteo. It follows a January ruling in the same case in which Hamilton ruled that Lilly breached its contract with Emisphere by setting up a secret research team to study its partner's technology on the sly.

Various people watching the case have remarked in the local news that this case may have major implications in the big pharma industry because the partnerships are based on as much trust as legal contracts, and if Lilly violated that trust with one of their partners, it could really shake things up.

The technology involved lets pharma companies make an injectable drug into pill form easing the "emotional trauma" of patients having to endure shots.

When this case first went to court, Emisphere had about 10 employees. Some of the head scientists for Lilly tried to cross over to Emisphere for new jobs and Emisphere took a couple of them but denied others.

The main point that Emisphere sued over was that they accuse Lilly of setting up a secret lab to study the injectable-to-pill-form technology for use in other drugs that Lilly already has on the market or plans on bringing to market soon.

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Eli Lilly takes another hit in court.

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A federal jury in Boston said the drugs relied on patented technology controlled by Ariad. Lilly says it will appeal.

They got caught on another two drugs besides the one in the original article.

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