Australia: CAR-T cell therapy patent disputes
Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy is a pioneering technology that is successfully changing the way we think about the treatment of cancer, in particular blood cancers. A number of CAR-T cell therapies have been approved in the US, Europe and Australia.
Testament to the commercial significance of CAR-T cell therapy is recent US patent litigation which initially led to an award of damages in the amount of US $1.2 billion. Given that Car-T cell patent opposition disputes are ongoing in Australia, it is inevitable that high-stakes Federal Court litigation will follow.
CAR-T cell therapy
CAR-T cell therapy is a form of immunotherapy that involves engineering a patient’s T cells to recognise and kill cancer cells. The key to CAR-T cells is the Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR), which is made up of an extracellular binding domain—typically an antibody scFv that recognises a cancer cell antigen—and an intracellular signalling domain(s) that drives T cell activation and cytotoxicity.
