Kymab succeeds in revoking Regeneron’s European Patent

Kymab Limited, a monoclonal antibody biopharmaceutical company, announced today that the European Patent Office (EPO) has granted Kymab’s request to entirely revoke European Patent EP1,360,287B1, owned by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.  

The revoked patent sought to cover genetically modified mice containing mouse antibody variable region loci that had been replaced with human variable region loci.  Following an oral hearing before the Opposition Division of the EPO on the 17th September 2014, the EPO agreed with Kymab that Regeneron’s claimed mouse invention is unpatentable since it lacks an inventive step as required by European patent law. 

In addition to Kymab, both Novo Nordisk A/S and Merus B.V. opposed the patent.  Regeneron will have the opportunity to appeal this decision to the Appeal Board of the European Patent Office.