SurModics Inc (SRDX)

[bridgeofsighs]

Eye surgeon sues SurModics over patents
The suit claims that he and a partner invented devices for eye treatment but that his name isn't on the patents.

By Janet Moore, Star Tribune

Last update: June 12, 2007 – 10:29 PM

A New York retinal surgeon has sued SurModics Inc. and his medical school mentor, claiming they removed his name from several patents as a co-inventor of promising devices that deliver drugs to the eyes.
The complaint, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, stems from SurModics' purchase of Alabama-based InnoRx Inc. for $21.4 million in January 2005. The deal was the first acquisition for Eden Prairie-based SurModics, a provider of surface modification and drug delivery technologies to the health care industry.

After the sale, SurModics said it would focus on the InnoRx technology to treat diabetic macular edema and age-related macular degeneration, retinal diseases that are leading causes of blindness.

SurModics' chief financial officer, Philip Ankeny, said Tuesday that the suit is without merit and that the company will defend itself. He declined to comment further.

Dr. Michael Cooney, 38, claims in court documents that he and Dr. Eugene de Juan founded InnoRx in 1998 while the two were retinal surgeons at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Cooney claims in the lawsuit that he was a key member of a team at Johns Hopkins that developed and patented a tiny wire coil that is coated with drugs and implanted in the eye in a doctor's office.

InnoRx failed to find a developmental partner to fund clinical trials, and communication between the two doctors dropped off.

Cooney claims he was surprised when he heard of the acquisition of InnoRx by SurModics, and when he looked up the patent for the coil drug-delivery device, he discovered his name was missing.

Cooney, who has requested a jury trial, has charged SurModics, De Juan, Johns Hopkins and two other defendants with unjust enrichment, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and correction of inventorship. He is demanding return of any compensation related to the SurModics acquisition, punitive damages and the return of his name as co-inventor of the coil patent.


Janet Moore • 612-673-7752 • [e-mail]