NEW YORK (360Dx) – Oxford Immunotec today announced that the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts has denied its motion for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the sale to new customers in the US of Qiagen's QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus (QFT Plus), a test used for the detection of latent tuberculosis.
Oxford said that the decision was based on the court's belief that it was not likely to suffer irreparable harm from Qiagen's marketing of QFT-Plus before an upcoming trial in January.
The court also found that Oxford was likely to prevail on the merits of its claims at trial and that Qiagen had not shown that it was likely to succeed on its subject matter, prior art, or non-infringement objections, Oxford said. The court further noted that if Oxford prevails at trial, it is likely that the infringing aspects of the QFT Plus will be permanently enjoined, the firm added.
"While we are disappointed that the court did not grant a preliminary injunction prohibiting the sale of Qiagen's QFT-Plus product in the US before trial, we are encouraged by the court's rulings on the issues of validity and obviousness," Peter Wrighton-Smith, Oxford Immunotec's CEO, said in a statement. "We continue to look forward to the further defense of our patents at the upcoming trial in January," he added.
In 2015, Oxford Immunotec sued Qiagen, Quest Diagnostics, and Laboratory Corporation of America, alleging they infringed patents underlying Oxford's T-SPOT TB test. Oxford alleges that Qiagen's tests infringes six of its patents covering the T-SPOT TB test and the peptides used in it — US Patent Nos. 7,632,646; 7,901,898; 8,216,795; 8,507,211; 8,617,821; and 9,005,902.
In June, Qiagen said it had received premarket approval from the US Food & Drug Administration of its QFT-Plus test for detecting latent tuberculosis infection. The firm said then that it planned to begin commercialization of the test later this year.