Juno Therapeutics Inc. and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center obtained a $752 million jury verdict for patent infringement last week in Los Angeles federal court against Kite Pharma Inc.  Following an eight-day trial, jurors awarded $585 million and a running royalty of 27.6 percent—equal to another $167 million—for infringement of Sloan-Kettering’s 7,446,190 patent on genetically engineered T-cells used to fight cancer. The process is known as CAR T therapy.

Irell & Manella and Jones Day persuaded jurors that the patent is valid and that Kite, which was acquired by Gilead Sciences Inc. in 2017, willfully infringed. That means the verdict could be subject to trebling by U.S. District Judge S. James Otero. Juno, which is owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., licenses the patent from Sloan-Kettering.