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A Construction That Eliminates the Entire Scope of Dependent Claims Should Be Avoided
Littelfuse, Inc. v. Mersen USA Ep Corp. , Appeal No. 21-2013, the Federal Circuit vacated a claim construction that violated the doctrine of claim differentiation by depriving several dependent claims of independent scope. Littelfuse sued Mersen for patent infringement. At Mersen’s behest, the district court construed two independent claims to require a multi-piece apparatus. Littlefuse stipulated to noninfringement under this claim construction and appealed. The Federal Circuit held that the district court’s multi-piece construction of the independent claims was erroneous because four dependent claims required a single-piece apparatus. Under the district court’s construction, these dependent claims were improperly rendered meaningless because they were left with no distinct scope. Thus, the Federal Circuit vacated the district court’s claim construction and judgment of noninfringement. The Heightened Standard of Proving Induced Infringement
Roche Diagnostics Corporation v. Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC , Appeal No. 21-1609, the Federal Circuit held that a finding of induced infringement requires knowledge that the induced acts constitute patent infringement, which can be established by a finding of ‘willful blindness,’ a standard of limited scope that exceeds recklessness and negligence. In 1995, Meso was formed as part of a research agreement with Igen International. The agreement granted Meso an exclusive worldwide license to all technology developed during the research. In 2003, Roche acquired a license from Igen to operate in the field of “human patient diagnostics.” That same year, BioVeris took ownership of the patents from Ingen. In 2007, Roche acquired BioVeris and began instructing its customers to ignore the field restriction labels. In 2010, Meso sued, alleging that Roche breached the 2003 deal by violating the field restriction. The district court determined Meso was not a party to the 2003 agreement and that only BioVeris could enforce the field restriction. In 2017, Roche brought suit seeking a declaratory judgment that it did not infringe Meso’s patent rights arising out of the 1995 license agreement. Meso counterclaimed for patent infringement. At trial, the jury found that Meso had an exclusive right to the asserted patent claims and that Roche both directly infringed Meso’s patent rights and induced infringement. The district court denied Roche’s post-trial motions challenging infringement, induced infringement and damages. However, it granted Roche’s motion regarding willfulness, denying Meso’s motion for enhanced damages. The district court also rendered a non-infringement decision with respect to three additional patents on the ground that Meso waived compulsory infringement counterclaims as to those patents. The Federal Circuit affirmed the finding of direct infringement, reversed the finding of induced infringement, vacated the damages award, and remanded for a new trial on damages. The Federal Circuit found that, in denying Roche’s motion regarding inducing infringement, the district court incorrectly applied a negligence standard rather than requiring specific intent. The Federal Circuit highlighted that the district court erroneously ruled that specific intent requires that the accused infringer “knew or should have known his actions would induce actual infringement.” The Federal Circuit noted the similarity between the intent standard for willfulness and inducement, and found that the district court’s ruling contradicted its own express finding that Roche subjectively believed it was not infringing or inducing infringement. The Federal Circuit further found that the alleged acts of inducement occurred outside the patent damages limitation period. The district court had relied on a concept of continuing impact; however, the Federal Circuit was wary of this concept. The Federal Circuit stated that, even if this concept was sound, Meso failed to demonstrate acts of inducement occurring prior to the damages limitation period that actually led to acts of direct infringement within the damages limitation period. The Federal Circuit also vacated the district court’s non-infringement decision regarding the three additional patents. The court found the compulsory counterclaim rule barred future claims, but that it did not authorize rendering an adverse judgment on declaratory judgment claims simply because of a failure to assert compulsory counterclaims. The court vacated and remanded for appropriate disposition of properly pled declaratory judgment claims. Judge Newman dissented, arguing that because Meso did not have a license to the asserted patent claims, both induced infringement and direct infringement should have been reversed. “Pliable” Language Results in “Resilient” Patent Claims
Niazi Licensing Corporation v. St. Jude Medical S.C., Inc. , Appeal No. 21-1864, the Federal Circuit held that providing examples in the claim language and written description may make descriptive terms definite. Niaizi sued St. Jude for infringement of its patent related to a catheter for cannulating the coronary sinus without significant manipulation. Niaizi alleged that St. Jude both directly infringed and induced infringement. The district court determined that all but one of the asserted claims were invalid as indefinite. Niaizi appealed the district court’s determinations as to indefiniteness, induced infringement, and sanctions. The Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s finding that the terms “resilient” and “pliable” rendered Niazi’s claims indefinite. The court applied the Nautilus test established by the Supreme Court to determine whether the use of descriptive terms (i.e., “resilient” and “pliable”) resulted in a claim that “fail[s] to inform, with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention.”
For the term “resilient,” the court found that the claim language and written description provided sufficient guidance to convey to a person of ordinary skill that a resilient outer catheter referred to one that has shape memory and stiffness such that it can return to its original shape. Further, the claims provided examples of resilient materials of which the outer catheter could be made (e.g., “braided silastic”). While there was less guidance for the term “pliable,” the court still found that the written description provided numerous examples of a “pliable” inner catheter. For example, the claims required “an inner, pliable catheter slidably disposed in the outer catheter.” Further, the specification stated that the pliable inner catheter was “constructed of a more pliable, soft material such as silicone” without “longitudinal braiding, which makes it extremely flexible and able to conform to various shapes.”  Thus, the court found that, when read in light of the intrinsic evidence, a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand the scope of the claims and the meaning of the terms “resilient” and “pliable” with reasonable certainty. The court affirmed the district court’s determination as to induced infringement and entry of evidentiary sanctions. Notice Letters and Communications May Form a Basis for Personal Jurisdiction
Apple Inc. v. Zipit Wireless, Inc. , Appeal No. 21-1760,  the Federal Circuit held that notice letters and related communications may be sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction within a given forum. California Plaintiff, Apple Inc. (“Apple”) sued Zipit Wireless, Inc. (Zipit) for patent infringement in the Northern District of California. Zipit was a Delaware corporation with a principal place of business and all of its 14 employees in South Carolina. In 2013, Zipit contacted Apple (domiciled in the Northern District of California) regarding the possibility of Apple buying or licensing the patents-in-suit from Zipit. Over the course of three years, the parties exchanged several rounds of correspondence, phone calls, and met in person twice at Apple’s headquarters in the Northern District. In June 2020, Zipit sued Apple in the Northern District of Georgia, accusing Apple of infringing the patents-in-suit. Nine days later, Apple filed a complaint in the Northern District of California, seeking a declaratory judgment of noninfringement of the patents-in-suit. Zipit moved to dismiss Apple’s complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction. In February 2021, the district court granted Zipit’s motion and dismissed Apple’s complaint, holding that it lacked specific personal jurisdiction over Zipit. The district court held that, while Apple established that the contact between the parties was sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction, exercise of jurisdiction would be unreasonable because Zipit’s contacts with California were all related to the attempted resolution of the dispute regarding the patents-in-suit. On appeal, the Federal Circuit disagreed that the exercise of personal jurisdiction would be unreasonable. The Federal Circuit explained that there is no bright-line rule prohibiting the exercise of personal jurisdiction based only on cease-and-desist letters and related in-person discussions. Rather, the Federal Circuit explained that courts consider a “variety of interests” in determining whether exercise of jurisdiction would be reasonable. These interests include (1) the burden on the defendant, (2) the forum state’s interest in adjudicating the dispute, (3) the plaintiff’s interest in obtaining relief, (4) the interstate judicial system’s interest in efficient resolution of controversies, and (5) the shared interest in furthering fundamental substantive social policies. The Federal Circuit found Zipit failed to meet its burden of presenting a compelling case that jurisdiction would have been unreasonable, reversed the district court’s judgment, and remanded the case for further proceedings.

Federal Circuit Review - April 2022

2022)
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U.S. patent law grants patent owners the right to grant licenses to their patents in analogy to landlords granting rents to real property as a license to use without obtaining ownership. §§ 261-262. But the complexities that can ensue, both in what is licensed and when it is licensed (and when those licenses expire) can be daunting to the extent that the parties don't always agree. Such a case was decided by the Federal Circuit in Roche Diagnostics Corp. v. Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC. The technology relates to immunoassays that use in electrochemiluminescence (ECL) and certain patents to that technology. As stated at the beginning of the Federal Circuit's majority opinion, "Meso doesn't own these patents. "  Nevertheless, Roche filed a declaratory judgment action to have the court confirm its right to practice the claimed invention in the face of Meso's assertions that it held an exclusive license to them from a prior owner, IGEN International, Inc. These rights stem from Meso's origins in a joint venture between IGEN and Mesoscale Technologies. Meso was to perform a Research Program in ECL technology and was granted a license for the intellectual property arising therefrom (although as the opinion explains the scope of that license is at issue in this case). Roche is also an IGEN licensee, having obtained licenses originally obtained by Boehringer Mannheim GmbH upon its acquisition of that company by Roche (those licenses being limited to certain clinical fields of use relevant to the issues here). IGEN and Roche terminated those licenses and entered into new ones in 2003, granting Roche a non-exclusive license to ECL technology that contained field-of-use restrictions to "human patient diagnostics" but also permitted "incidental" out-of-field use subject to a 65% royalty rate. Roche paid IGEN $1.4 billion for the new license. Coincident with this new license IGEN transferred its ECL technology to a new venture, BioVeris. Then, in 2007, a Roche subsidiary acquired BioVeris for about $600 million and, Roche contended, with this acquisition all field-of-use restrictions ceased. Not so fast, said Meso, who filed suit alleging that Roche breached the terms of the 2003 license by abrogating the field-of use restrictions. This lawsuit, in Delaware Chancery Court, was unsuccessful, because that court held Meso was not a party to that license and that only BioVeris (now owned by a Roche subsidiary) could enforce the field-of-use restrictions. Nevertheless, Meso was sufficiently persistent that Roche filed this DJ action to have determined once and for all the status of the license and any attendant field-of-use restrictions on its ability to sells ECL-reliant equipment without incurring patent infringement liability. At trial, a jury found Meso had an exclusive license to the asserted patent claims, and that Roche directly infringed claim 33 of U.S. Patent No. 6,808,939 and induced infringement of claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 5,935,779 and claims 38 and 44 of U.S. Patent No. 6,165,729. Adding insult to injury (short term, as it turned out), the jury also found that Roche's infringement was willful; the jury awarded $137,500,000 in infringement damages. The trial court granted Roche's JMOL on the jury's willfulness determination and denied Meso's motion for enhanced damages, as well as rendering judgment of non-infringement on three other patents for which Meso did not assert compulsory counterclaims. This appeal followed. The Federal Circuit affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-part, vacated-in-part, and remanded, in an opinion by Judge Prost joined by Judge Taranto; Judge Newman dissented but only with regard to the jury's verdict of direct infringement of claim 33 of the '939 patent. The opinion sets forth relevant provisions of the licenses; with regard to the license between IGEN and Meso the panel recognized two "prongs" of licensed technology arising from this provision:
2.1. IGEN Technology. IGEN hereby grants to [Meso] an exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to practice the IGEN Technology to make, use and sell products or processes (A) developed in the course of the Research Program, or (B) utilizing or related to the Research Technologies; provided that IGEN shall not be required to grant [Meso] a license to any technology that is subject to exclusive licenses to third parties granted prior to the date hereof. In the event any such exclusive license terminates, or IGEN is otherwise no longer restricted by such license from licensing such technology to [Meso], such technology shall be, and hereby is, licensed to [Meso] pursuant thereto [emphasis in license term]. Meso asserted that its rights to the asserted patents stem from "prong (A)" of this license term, wherein the claimed technology "was developed in the course of the Research Program. "  The parties disagreed over the meaning of the word "developed" in this phrase, Roche contending it limited the licensed patents to those claiming newly invented technology while Meso's interpretation was without that limitation. The jury ultimately agreed with Meso and the District Court held that choice was one "between two reasonable views" in denying Roche's JMOL on this issue. (The jury also found Roche liable for inducement of infringement for technology falling under "prong B" but the Federal Circuit did not address this verdict because it reversed on other grounds discussed below.) Roche reiterated its arguments before the Federal Circuit with insufficient avail to persuade a majority of the panel members. In addition to arguing the plain meaning of the word, Roche also asserted a "course of conduct" interpretation, to the extent that all the other parties to these agreements (Roche, IGEN, and BioVeris) had sold products that would have fallen within Meso's license throughout the period between 2003 and 2007 without Meso objecting. While agreeing that Roche's arguments "have considerable heft," the technology involved was claimed in the '779 and '729 patents (which predated the Research Program), for which the jury had found Roche liable for inducing infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(b) and which the panel unanimously agreed was erroneous. With regard to the jury's direct infringement verdict on the asserted '939 patent claim, this technology did not predate the Research Program. Moreover, the panel majority held that Roche had not preserved its argument that the evidence adduced in support of infringement was inadequate because it was relegated to a footnote. Accordingly, the majority affirmed the jury verdict that Roche directly infringed the '939 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271(a). Turning to Roche's liability for induced infringement, the Federal Circuit reversed because it found an absence of intent as well as an absence of an "inducing act" that would support liability. Citing the standards the Supreme Court enunciated in Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A., 563 U.S. 754, 765–66 (2011), the panel agreed with Roche that the District Court erred in applying a negligence standard ("known or should have known") rather than requiring a showing of specific intent (or "willful blindness") for finding inducement. And under this proper standard, the Federal Circuit held the jury's finding of infringement liability for inducement was "unsupportable." A part of the panel's rationale was that the inducement finding (and the specific intent required to support it) was inconsistent with the District Court's grant of JMOL on willfulness, which is also assessed by a specific intent standard. In that JMOL grant the District Court stated that "at no time did Roche have a subjective intent to infringe (or induce infringement of) Meso's patent rights. "  (In a footnote, the Court noted that Meso had not cross-appealed the District Court's JMOL on willfulness. )  The basis for the District Court's finding on willfulness was "Roche's reasonable interpretation of the contract provisions, [under which] Roche had no liability to Meso for patent infringement. "  A similar rationale underpinned the District Court's denial of Meso's motion for enhanced damages, wherein "[t]he evidence demonstrates that Roche had a good faith belief in its reasonable interpretation of the relevant contract provisions [and it also relied on Roche's] good faith, reasonable belief that the [BioVeris] acquisition meant the elimination of field-of-use restrictions—and, hence, no possibility of patent liability." In a related issue, the Federal Circuit agreed with Roche that it had not committed any "inducing acts" within the "patent damages limitation period" under 35 U.S.C. § 286. The Court rejected Meso's argument that Roche's acts of inducement that arose during that period were continuing during the period where inducing acts would be subject to liability. But as the panel notes "[t]he district court did not cite any points of authority for this 'continuing-impact' standard, and neither does Meso," and contrary authority, specifically Standard Oil Co. v. Nippon Shokubai Kagaku Kogyo Co., 754 F.2d 345 (Fed. 1985), was both persuasive and controlling. Finally, with regard to damages the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded on the principle that damages at trial had been imposed for direct infringement of the '939 patent and inducement of infringement on the '779 and '729 patents. In view of the Federal Circuit's decision that Roche was not liable for inducing infringement, Roche was entitled to a new damages trial under Omega Pats., LLC v. CalAmp Corp., 920 F.3d 1337, 1350 (Fed. 2019). In addition, the panel explicated the errors by the District Court in its apportionment calculus (or lack of it) regarding the extent to which the jury erred in arriving at the $137,500,000 damages award under Georgia-Pacific Corp. v. U.S. Plywood-Champion Papers, Inc., 446 F.2d 295 (2d Cir. 1971). On Meso's cross-appeal regarding the three patents recited in Roche's DJ motion that the District Court held were not infringed because Meso did not state a compulsory counterclaim, the Federal Circuit agreed with Meso that while such an outcome might be appropriate for a future action involving these same patents the compulsory counterclaim doctrine does not bar assertion of these patents in the same proceeding. Thus, the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded for trial on these patents. Judge Newman's dissent was based on her determination that Roche owned the '939 patent by virtue of their acquisition in the 2007 purchase from IGEN through BioVeris and thus Roche could not infringe its own patents. In her view, Meso has no rights to control the use of these patents outside the Research Program and she would reverse the District Court's denial of JMOL on the jury's verdict of direct infringement against Roche.

Roche Diagnostics Corp. v. Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC (Fed. Cir. 2022)

Nicole DeFeudis
Editor
A fed­er­al ap­peals court over­turned a $137 mil­lion ver­dict against Roche Di­ag­nos­tics on Fri­day in a Delaware patent in­fringe­ment case — but the phar­ma gi­ant isn’t com­plete­ly out of the woods. While the court ruled that Roche did not in­duce cus­tomers to use its Cobas di­ag­nos­tics ma­chines in a way that in­fringed up­on three Meso Scale patents, it main­tained that Roche di­rect­ly in­fringed up­on one of its patents, and or­dered a new dam­ages tri­al. The patents in ques­tion sur­round im­munoas­says that ex­ploit elec­tro­chemi­lu­mi­nes­cence (ECL), or the use of elec­trons and light to de­tect and mea­sure the pres­ence of spe­cif­ic mol­e­cules in a sam­ple — for ex­am­ple, virus mol­e­cules in a blood sam­ple. Roche’s Cobas ma­chines use ECL for a wide va­ri­ety of tests. Meso ar­gues that IGEN In­ter­na­tion­al grant­ed it ex­clu­sive rights to the patent claims it’s now bring­ing against Roche over the use of its Cobas tests, ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments. In 1998, Roche ac­quired Boehringer Mannheim, which had pre­vi­ous­ly li­censed ECL rights from IGEN. Roche in­her­it­ed Boehringer’s rights, and in 2003, Roche and IGEN formed a new agree­ment that grant­ed Roche nonex­clu­sive rights to the ECL tech in the field of “hu­man pa­tient di­ag­nos­tics.”
IGEN lat­er trans­ferred its rights to BioVeris, which Roche snapped up in 2007 for about $600 mil­lion. At the time, the com­pa­ny an­nounced that it would now own the full patent rights to the ECL tech, and be­gan sell­ing the prod­ucts out­side of its pri­or field re­stric­tions. But in 2010, Meso sued Roche, al­leg­ing the com­pa­ny breached its 2003 li­cense with IGEN by vi­o­lat­ing the field re­stric­tion. In 2019, a ju­ry found that Roche in­duced cus­tomers to use the Cobas ma­chines in a way that vi­o­lat­ed three of Meso’s patents, and di­rect­ly in­fringed on one of the patents. The ju­ry award­ed Meso $137 mil­lion in dam­ages — but Judge Leonard Stark tacked on in­ter­est, bring­ing the amount up to $170 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to a Reuters re­port. On Fri­day, a pan­el of judges ruled that Meso failed to prove that Roche in­tend­ed for its Cobas users to vi­o­late the patent rights, but up­held that Roche di­rect­ly in­fringed on one of Meso’s patents. How­ev­er, Judge Pauline New­man dis­sent­ed, ar­gu­ing that “Roche can­not in­fringe patents it owns.”
“In 2007, Roche pur­chased the patents in suit from IGEN In­ter­na­tion­al, via IGEN’s patent-hold­ing com­pa­ny BioVeris Cor­po­ra­tion. Meso Scale Di­ag­nos­tics (MSD or Meso) does not own or have ex­clu­sive rights to these patents, and has no right to con­trol their use in ar­eas out­side of the des­ig­nat­ed Re­search Pro­gram,” she wrote. Roche has not re­spond­ed to a re­quest for com­ment. AUTHOR
John Carroll
Editor & Founder
Carlyle Group’s global head of healthcare Steve Wise is making a big foray into the biotech financing scene. And the private equity player is acutely aware of how it will likely play out in the current financial crunch afflicting the sector’s public companies. This morning Wise is pulling back the curtains on Carlyle’s deal to buy out Abingworth, a global biotech investor which has grown deep roots into the entrepreneurial dirt of drug development over the decades through its traditional VC role, while developing a substantial business funding late-stage trials. That specialty of theirs — picking up 100% of the Phase III risk in exchange for a share of the revenue — has swelled in popularity as the once booming streams of public market money funneled into the industry dries up. Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription
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Zachary Brennan
Senior Editor
The FDA last week quietly met for the first time with leaders from a handful of states to discuss their pending and controversial plans to import cheaper drugs from Canada. The push for such imports comes as Canadian drug prices continue to hover at a fraction of the prices seen across their southern border. An FDA spokesperson confirmed to Endpoints News that the meeting on March 31 was the first opportunity for FDA and HHS to meet with states that have taken significant action toward developing an importation program proposal, which currently includes Florida, Colorado, Maine, New Mexico and Vermont. Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription
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John Carroll
Editor & Founder
NEW ORLEANS — Amgen may have won the race to first approval among the KRAS G12C rivals, but that hasn’t deterred Novartis from unveiling an all-hands clinical campaign to get a best-of-class rival onto the market. Novartis tipped its hand at AACR22, highlighting early data on JDQ443 that demonstrated a confirmed ORR of 57% — 4 of 7 patients — at the high, 200 mg dose for non-small cell lung cancer. That’s a solid debut for monotherapy results, but the investigators on the project are looking to do much better with a lineup of combination trials adding in a SHP2, in dose escalation since last June, along with their PD-1 inhibitor tislelizumab and a triplet using all 3. Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription
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Zachary Brennan
Senior Editor
The tale of a booming federal drug discount program, which pharma companies have sought to curtail, has often been told but rarely with new numbers. Now, the drug pricing gurus at IQVIA say their latest data shows that the program, known as 340B and once designed to give massive discounts to only a select number of outpatient drugs for only a select few health care providers, has ballooned to $93.6 billion in sales in 2021, which is about 15% of the total $668.3 billion in pharma sales for the year. Read More
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Beth Snyder Bulik
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Amgen wants to know who’s in? For Enbrel, that is, in a new campaign focused on the future for people with rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis who say in TV ads: “I’m in for what’s next.”
The latest work evolves previous Enbrel messages, building on patient insights, said Wendy Lua, Amgen director, consumer marketing. “We learned that patients often have conflicting emotions. It’s a balancing act between grieving what was lost but also grateful in terms of what’s possible in the future,” she said. “Patients can feel optimistic, and they want to move forward, but sometimes get held back by the challenges of managing their RA or PSA.”
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John Carroll
Editor & Founder
David Denton, who was displaced as CFO of CVS after helping engineer the $69 billion merger of his company with Aetna, is jumping into the top numbers job at Pfizer. Most recently working as CFO of home improvement giant Lowe’s, Denton is moving into the C-suite as Pfizer is widely expected to begin using its multibillion-dollar Covid-19 windfall for a slate of new buyouts and drug deals. Denton is replacing Frank D’Amelio, who is retiring from Pfizer after a 15-year stint. Denton had exited CVS in the wake of the Aetna merger, grabbing 2 years’ salary on his way out to a new posting at Lowe’s. He’s been given top marks by his employers for strategic thinking, landing inside the inner circle of Bourla’s at a key moment for Pfizer and biopharma in general. Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription
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Zachary Brennan
Senior Editor
Depending on who you ask, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) decision last week to restrict payment for amyloid-targeted Alzheimer’s drugs was either a show of strength from an agency once considered a rubber stamp following a new drug approval, or aggressive overreach by an agency ill-equipped to set clinical trial requirements for an already FDA-approved drug. Rarely are two sides so defiantly split in their positions, even as biopharma industry observers try to parse what may be the biggest elephant in the room for accelerated approvals for a long time coming. Read More
April 11, 2022 01:29 PM EDT

Federal appeals court overturns $137M patent verdict against Roche — but the case isn't closed just yet

Veteran Life Sciences Executive and Investor Brings 35+ Years’ Experience
Marizyme, Inc. , a publicly traded global biotechnology company developing products to reduce the burden of ischemia-reperfusion injury in tissue grafting, organ transplant, and other surgical indications, announced that it has appointed veteran life sciences executive and investor Dr. Neil J. Campbell, as CEO and President and a member of its Board of Directors. Dr. Campbell has more than 35 years of successful experience with public and private companies in the life sciences, medical, health tech, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing technologies, including with IGEN International (now Roche), Celera Genomics, and Abbott Laboratories. He also has prior institutional investment experience as a partner in venture capital and operating partner and industry advisor in private equity. James Sapirstein, Marizyme’s Executive Chairman, who also served as Interim CEO, commented, “Neil is a strong leader who will take Marizyme to the next level by advancing the company’s clinical programs and develop strategies and execution to unlock shareholder value. His extensive executive experience in the life sciences and medical industries, as well as his investment background, will guide Marizyme as the company grows its life science assets and seeks to elevate its financial position.”
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“I am very excited to join the Marizyme team,” said Dr. Campbell. “Marizyme has great potential in the pipeline of products in development and the early success of products like DuraGraft®, which has been shown to reduce graft failure in bypass surgery and significantly reduce major adverse cardiac events such as repeat revascularization and myocardial infarction.”
Dr. Campbell currently serves as Chairman of Mosaigen®, a commercial development company, and RespaRx™, a medical device company. Previously, Dr. Campbell served as Chairman, CEO, and founder of Celios®, a respiratory device company that was acquired by a private investment group. Prior to founding Celios, Dr. Campbell was Co-founder, President and CEO of Helomics, a personalized healthcare company focused on next-generation therapeutics and diagnostics. Dr. Campbell has held senior executive positions at SuperNova Diagnostics, EntreMed Pharmaceuticals, Life Technologies, IGEN International (now Roche), Celera Genomics, and Abbott Laboratories. He has also held academic positions at Johns Hopkins University and Medical Institutes, Hong Kong University of Science and Tech, University of Liverpool (UK), University of Baltimore and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA.
Dr. Campbell earned his B.S. from Norwich University; his M.A. and M.B.A. from Webster University; and his Doctorate from the University of Liverpool in the UK.

Marizyme, Inc. Appoints Dr. Neil J. Campbell, as CEO, President and Member of Board of Directors

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