Search Share Prices
Premaitha Health wins right to court appeal over prenatal test
Molecular diagnostics researcher Premaitha Health has secured the right to appeal a 'first instance judgment' in its ongoing litigation with Californian biotechnology company Illumina and others.
Premaitha's application for leave to appeal against the 21 November judgement was accepted by the judge at a form of order hearing in the UK High Court on Tuesday.
The Manchester-based firm was granted leave to appeal against the court's first instance findings of infringement and validity on a range of grounds, including obviousness, lack of priority and two alternative processes for carrying out the IONA test that Premaitha considered to be non-infringing to Illumina.
Premaitha was ordered to pay interim costs of roughly £1.5m to Illumina which would be satisfied by the group's escrow facility, however, they would be repaid if the appeal proved to be successful.
Dr Stephen Little, Premaitha's chief executive, said, "The court was refreshingly pragmatic in granting us leave to appeal all aspects of the November judgment, with which we still strongly disagree."
"We have attempted to engage Illumina into meaningful settlement discussions both before and since the November judgment. We will continue to pursue such discussions as we believe these are firmly in the best interests of patients, clinicians, the NHS and the companies involved. We are open to terms that are financially viable for us to offer IONA within the UK without the negative drag on the whole market that this litigation engenders," Little added.
Premaitha said it expected the general appeal cycle to take at least twelve months.
The IONA test is an advanced non-invasive prenatal screening test for Trisomy 21, 18 and 13.
As of 1120 GMT, shares had nudged ahead 0.54% to 4.52p.