Bayer to Onyx: You Don't Even Know the Name of the Drug We Didn't Steal From You

Bayer is arguing that it did not steal an analog of its Nexavar cancer drug from development partner Onyx because, in part, Onyx got the name of the analog wrong in its lawsuit. Onyx sued Bayer in May, alleging that after the little-cancer-company-that-could had shown Bayer how to make Nexavar (sorafenib), Bayer then secretly synthesized analogs of the drug and patented them without telling Onyx, in breach of their agreement.

• Download Bayer’s answer here.

Bayer answered the suit last month. It didn’t give much detail on its version of events, except to deny Onyx’s allegations. Bayer admits it’s developing an analog of Nexavar but denies the conspiratorial undertone of Onyx’s complaint:

Bayer Corp., is developing a new anti-cancer compound, known internally as DAST and known publicly under the official International Nonproprietary Name of regorafenib, in which Onyx has no rights. The German Bayer Entities deny that this development was part of a “scheme” or “secret program” done in an “effort to bypass the Collaboration Agreement” or that it was “surreptitiously” undertaken.

Oddly, a good chunk of Bayer’s answer seems to rest on the insistence that the name Onyx uses to describe the Nexavar analog is the wrong name. In its complaint, Onyx identified an analog of Nexavar as “fluoro-sorafenib.” It’s basically the same thing as Nexavar except it has flourine sticking out of the side of it. (To prove how interchangeable these atoms are on the Nexavar molecule, Onyx also showed the court a molecule with Chlorine in the same position, calling it “chloro-sorafenib.”)

Bayer is having none of it. Fluoro-sorafenib’s real name is regorafenib, Bayer argues:

The German Bayer Entities deny that there are compounds known as “chloro-sorafenib” or “fluoro-sorafenib.” The German Bayer Entities admit (1) that Figure 2 is the chemical formula for sorafenib, (2) that Figure 3 is the chemical structure of regorafenib, and (3) that figure 4 is a chemical formula of a chlorine-substituted compound corresponding to example number 49 disclosed in the ‘834 patent at column 73-74.

… The German Bayer Entities deny that there is a compound known as “fluorosorafenib.”

One suspects the jury will not conclude that nomenclature lies at the heart of this case.

And finally: Nexavar slows progression of breast cancer! Or maybe it doesn’t!

• Previously:
• Onyx Suit vs. Bayer Reads Like Romance Gone Wrong: “I Want My Baby Back!”