NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – ArcherDx and Massachusetts General Hospital are suing Qiagen over alleged infringement of a patent covering parts of Archer's Anchored Multiplex PCR (AMP) technology.
In a complaint filed this week with the US District Court for the District of Maryland, the plaintiffs claim that Qiagen infringes US Patent No. 10,017,810, entitled "Methods for determining a nucleotide sequence contiguous to a known target nucleotide sequence."
The patent was issued July 10, 2018 to Anthony John Iafrate, Long Phi Le, and Zongli Zheng and is assigned to MGH. Archer exclusively licenses the '810 patent for non-clinical laboratory research as well as in vitro diagnostics use. The patent covers certain aspects of Archer's proprietary AMP target enrichment technology. Archer said it sells four product lines, all assay kits, that make use of the AMP technology, called VariantPlex, FusionPlex, Reveal ctDNA, and Immuniverse. The kits are research use only but may be used in laboratory-developed kits to detect genes involved in cancer.
The plaintiffs claim that Qiagen's QIAseq line of kits, launched in the fall of 2016, incorporate Archer's patented AMP technology. The use of the kits by customers in the US according to Qiagen's instructions "directly infringes claimed methods of the '810 patent," according to the complaint. "Qiagen LLC's infringement of the '810 patent has injured and continues to injure Archer and MGH, causing irreparable harm."
Archer and MGH are seeking a jury trial, a declaration that Qiagen has infringed the '810 patent, and a permanent injunction barring Qiagen from further infringement. In addition, the asked the court to award Archer damages in an amount to be proven at trial that cover its lost profits and damages from price erosion of Archer's kits.