Dana-Farber’s patent win could mean billions

The stakes were high in a patent dispute, and not just because a leading cancer center was challenging a Nobel Prize winner who claimed to be the sole inventor of a cancer immunotherapy after a collaboration had soured. When Dana-Farber Cancer Institute prevailed in its pursuit to add Gordon Freeman’s name to Tasuku Honjo’s on the patent behind the blockbuster cancer drug Opdivo, the Boston research hub also opened the door to potential payments from any company developing a new drug in this class. Freeman, Honjo, and Clive Wood, their colleague at the Genetics Institute, discovered how to release the brakes that cancer slams on a patient’s immune system. Opdivo pulled in first-quarter sales of $1.8 billion this year, behind Merck’s Keytruda, which totaled $2.3 billion for the same period. I have more here.