In a blow to ImClone Systems Inc. and a triumph for a prominent Israeli research institution, a judge ruled that three scientists from Israel are the true inventors of a process used in the delivery of the blockbuster cancer drug, Erbitux.
Southern District of New York Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald on Monday directed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to replace seven names now on the controversial patent with those of Professor Michael Sela, Dr. Esther Aboud-Pirak and Dr. Esther Hurwitz. The three scientists made the pioneering cancer discovery at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehobot, Israel, in the late 1980s.
