Biotech Values

[iwfal]

MNTA - Translation double check:

The good news is that it looks like Ampha is, in fact, violating patent 866 - probably using the HPLC method (which is claim 50 something).

The bad news is that without some really good lawyering by Momenta they won't win:

a) It appears like Momenta, in the original patent filing, mentioned that HPLC wasn't good enough as a measurement technique to measure the un-natural sugars.

b) The entire patent being claimed is explicitly about making manufacturing decisions based upon the signature of certain un-natural sugars. But generally Momenta's only description of those sugars is a description of them as whatever causes Peak 9 in a CE plot. Is this specific enough... or not? Note that they are also somewhat unspecific about exactly what the signature is.

As Mouton noted - it really is impossible to figure out where this is likely to go without seeing the Momenta filings too. I can certainly envision strong counters to each of the above two Amphastar assertions - but what matters is what Momenta does.