NEW YORK (360Dx) – Oxford Immunotec and Qiagen said today that they have settled a lawsuit alleging patent infringement of Oxford's patents by Qiagen's QuantiFERON-TB Gold and QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus blood tests for tuberculosis infection.
Under the agreement, all pending claims between Oxford and Qiagen and the codefendants have been resolved. As part of the settlement, Oxford has granted Qiagen a royalty-free, non-exclusive license that extends to all current and future customers of the QuantiFERON-TB Gold and QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus in exchange for a one-time, lump-sum payment of $27.5 million.
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 had alleged that Qiagen's tests infringed 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.
The lawsuit was filed in US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
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.