Epcoritamab

A Genmab lawsuit pits AbbVie against a close collaborator. \n AbbVie has filed a lawsuit against Genmab, accusing the Danish drugmaker of being “intentionally and willfully blind” to the theft of trade secrets. Genmab has vowed to “vigorously defend” itself against the claims.The case, which AbbVie filed late last week, centers on antibody-drug conjugate technology used by ProfoundBio. Genmab acquired the biotech for $1.8 billion last year, securing rights to a challenger to AbbVie’s Elahere. AbbVie alleges that ProfoundBio initially failed to produce a viable ADC pipeline and, “instead of doing the hard work necessary for success,” took a shortcut by tapping a former AbbVie employee, Julia Gavrilyuk, Ph.D., for knowledge.“Armed with AbbVie’s trade secrets and confidential information, ProfoundBio turned its luck around, filing patent applications and advancing a clinical pipeline that prominently feature what it characterized as its single ‘solution’ to the challenge of ADC development: designing ADCs with ‘hydrophilic linkers with proven payloads,’” AbbVie claimed in the lawsuit.Gavrilyuk and Tae Han, Ph.D., had worked together at Stemcentrx and, after that biotech was acquired, AbbVie. In 2018, Han cofounded ProfoundBio. The lawsuit claims Han was aware Gavrilyuk’s work at AbbVie “involved precisely the type of ADC linkers” ProfoundBio needed. According to the lawsuit, Gavrilyuk worked closely with Stefan Munneke, Ph.D., who had the idea of using open-chain sugars in ADC linkers, at AbbVie. The suit claims Han and ProfoundBio “knowingly and intentionally encouraged and enticed” Gavrilyuk to disclose “AbbVie’s stolen trade secret Sugar Scaffold ADC linkers and related designs.” ProfoundBio began filing patents and promoting its linker technology in 2021, according to the lawsuit, and the platform was central to its acquisition by Genmab.AbbVie’s lawsuit names Han, Gavrilyuk, ProfoundBio and Genmab as defendants. The alleged theft of trade secrets took place before Genmab acquired ProfoundBio. However, AbbVie is arguing Genmab should have known the biotech was built on its trade secrets. The lawsuit quotes Genmab executives discussing their high level of due diligence for the ProfoundBio buyout and notes that one executive said the innovative aspect of the ProfoundBio linker technology “is the very heavy use of sorbitol in order to increase the hydrophilicity.” Such quotes informed AbbVie’s allegation that “Genmab knew, reasonably had reason to know or was willfully blind” to the trade secrets.Genmab sees things differently, saying it “categorically refutes allegations and will vigorously defend the company.” The Danish drugmaker called the case “yet another lawsuit among multiple recent lawsuits filed by AbbVie against competitors alleging misappropriation of its trade secrets by former AbbVie employees.” Adcentrx, Alvotech, BeiGene and Revance have been in AbbVie’s crosshairs in similar cases. The Genmab lawsuit pits AbbVie against a close collaborator. AbbVie and Genmab co-commercialize the blood cancer drug Epkinly in the U.S. and Japan. However, Genmab established itself as a potential direct competitor to AbbVie in other areas when it bought ProfoundBio.Rinatabart sesutecan, an ADC designed to deliver a topoisomerase-1 inhibitor to cells that express folate receptor alpha, was the centerpiece of the ProfoundBio deal. AbbVie acquired an ADC against the same target when it paid $10.1 billion for ImmunoGen in 2022. 

Nadzeya Haroshka/Getty Images AbbVie claims that Genmab turned a blind eye to trade secret theft allegedly used to support the development of ProfoundBio’s investigational antibody-drug conjugates. Genmab acquired ProfoundBio in May 2024. AbbVie has sued long-time partner Genmab, claiming that the Danish biotech “misappropriated” trade secrets related to antibody-drug conjugate technology developed at the Chicago-based company, according to Genmab’s press announcement of the matter. The complaint, filed late last week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, focuses on certain techniques to improve antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). According to Genmab’s statement, AbbVie’s claims pertain to rinatabart sesutecan (Rina-S), an investigational FRα-targeting ADC being developed by Washington-based ProfoundBio, which Genmab acquired in May 2024 . AbbVie’s allegations also cover other ADC candidates from ProfoundBio. “AbbVie is not asserting or enforcing any patent rights against the defendants,” Genmab noted in its press announcement. “To Genmab’s knowledge, AbbVie has not pursued any development of products incorporating their alleged trade secrets.” According to reporting from Fierce Biotech , AbbVie is accusing Genmab of turning a blind eye to trade secret theft that occurred at ProfoundBio related to technology involved in building ADCs, ahead of Genmab’s acquisition of the company. The lawsuit names several former AbbVie employees as well as Tae Han, the founder of ProfoundBio. The suit claims that Han “knowingly and intentionally encouraged and enticed” the disclosure of trade secrets related to ADC technology developed at AbbVie. Genmab “categorically refutes” AbbVie’s allegations and intends to “vigorously defend” against the claims. Rina-S is currently in late-stage development for ovarian cancer and other solid tumors that express the FRα protein. Its toxic payload is exatecan, a second-generation topoisomerase I inhibitor that can damage DNA in cancer cells, triggering their death. According to Genmab, Rina-S “has the potential to address a broader patient population in ovarian cancer than is served by current standard of care, including AbbVie’s Elahere.” The trade secret complaint, the biotech continued, “is yet another lawsuit among multiple recent lawsuits filed by AbbVie against competitors alleging misappropriation of its trade secrets by former AbbVie employees.” In September 2024, the pharma sued BeiGene, claiming it “enticed and encouraged” a former AbbVie employee to share protected information, according to Fierce Biotech . Both companies are advancing next-generation BTK inhibitors for cancer. Meanwhile, in December 2023, AbbVie slapped Adcentrx Therapeutics with a lawsuit, alleging that the biotech hired a former AbbVie scientist to extract information regarding a certain antibody cancer program at the pharma, as per Reuters . Genmab and AbbVie are long-time oncology partners, joining hands in June 2020 to advance and commercialize three bispecific therapies. The star of this collaboration is Epkinly, which won the FDA’s approval in June 2024 for relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma. Under their 2020 agreement, the companies are jointly commercializing Epkinly in U.S. and Japan, while AbbVie will take charge in other territories. In its news release over the weekend, Genmab said AbbVie’s trade secret lawsuit will not affect the Epkinly partnership. “We remain fully committed to the epcoritamab broad clinical development program and our commercialization efforts,” the biotech noted.