You can’t win 'em all, even when you’re an Amgen lawyer

Amgen’s prowess in the courtroom has seeded the backhanded compliment that the storied biotech company is more of a law firm with fermenters, a joke most recently trotted out when Amgen won a dispute with Novartis over biosimilars.

Then came yesterday, when a district judge ruled in favor of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in an ongoing patent dispute over injected treatments for high cholesterol. The ruling, according to Credit Suisse analyst Evan Seigerman, means it’s unlikely that Regeneron’s drug will be taken off the U.S. market and unlikely that Amgen will be able to collect a royalty on any of its revenue.

This is not a monumental decision in monetary terms; neither cholesterol medicine has flirted with blockbuster sales. But it does provide a caveat to the oft-used biotech axiom of “never bet against Amgen’s lawyers."