On June 15, China’s biopharmaceutical industry witnessed a historic patent ruling.

Hebo Pharmaceuticals, a Chinese biotechnology company, completely defeated global pharmaceutical giant Amgen in a federal court in Delaware, USA.

The jury reached a unanimous verdict in just three hours: Amgen committed willful infringement, with a base compensation of $20.2037 million. Under the triple penalty for intentional infringement under U.S. patent law, the maximum compensation for this case could be $60.6 million. This is not only a huge compensation but also the first benchmark case in which a Chinese biotech company directly defeated a top international pharmaceutical company in the core antibody platform patent field.

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1. Case Background

Harbour Antibodies BV, a core subsidiary of Hebo Med, has officially filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Amgen and its wholly-owned subsidiary Teneobio, focusing on the Grosveld core antibody platform patents independently controlled by Hebo Med.

Plaintiff: Hebo Pharma, holding core patents

The plaintiff in this case is Harbour Antibodies BV, a core subsidiary of Hebo Pharmaceuticals.

Hebo Pharma is a Chinese biotechnology company focused on the development of innovative antibody drugs. Its core competitiveness comes from a patented antibody platform underlying technology called Grosveld.

This patent was originally invented by Professor Frank Grosveld, founder of Hebo Pharmaceuticals, and has been globally deployed since 2002, covering core technologies such as gene-edited animals and the preparation of fully human heavy-chain antibodies. In 2016, Hebo Pharma acquired the Dutch company Harbour Antibodies, fully obtaining ownership of this patent family and the corresponding Harbour Mice® transgenic mouse technology platform

Defendant: Amgen, a global pharmaceutical giant

The defendant in this case is global pharmaceutical giant Amgen, whose core technology comes from the US biotech company Teneobio, acquired in 2021 for $2.5 billion.

Teneobio possesses the UniRat® transgenic rat platform, which also adopts a technical pathway of knocking out the light chain of animal autoantibodies and transferring into human heavy chain genes to develop fully human heavy chain antibodies.

After technical comparison, Hebo Pharma determined that the core technical principles, preparation processes, and final products of both are highly similar. Teneobio merely replaced the type of experimental animal, effectively falling under the protection of Grosveld’s patent.

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2. Focus of Contention

The core dispute in this case is: Is Teneobio’s technical route the result of independent research and development, or is it a deliberate circumvention and application of Grosveld’s patent?

As early as 2011, platinum-related entities noticed the high similarities in each other’s technologies. In 2017, Hebo Pharma proactively approached Teneobio to discuss patent licensing cooperation but failed to reach an agreement.

In July 2021, Amgen acquired Teneobio, significantly enhancing the commercial value of Teneobio’s technology platform and pipeline under development. Seeing the losses from infringement continue to grow, in December 2021, Hebo Pharmaceuticals officially filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the U.S. federal court for Delaware, with Amgen, as the acquirer, becoming a co-defendant.

This nearly five-year-long multinational patent dispute has thus fully begun.

3. Major ruling

On June 8, the case officially entered the jury trial stage at the Federal Court of Delaware.

After fully hearing both sides’ evidence, technical presentations, and closing arguments, the jury reached a unanimous verdict in just three hours, with all four core findings favorable to Hobo Pharma:

• First, the Grosveld patent involved in the case is legal and valid, completely rejecting Amgen’s patent invalidity defense and confirming the stability and legal validity of Hebo Pharmaceuticals’ underlying technology patents;
• Second, Amgen and its subsidiary Teneobio indeed engaged in patent infringement, and their core antibody R&D technology falls within the scope of patent protection for Hebo Pharmaceuticals;
• Third, this infringement is a typical intentional infringement, recognizing that Amgen used the related core technology without authorization despite knowing the patent in question, clearly demonstrating a clear intent to infringe;
• Fourth, Hebo Pharma is entitled to full claims of $20.37 million in compensation.

The determination of “intentional infringement” this time is the biggest highlight and core value of this case.

According to U.S. patent law, ordinary patent infringement only requires actual damages, while willful infringement can be awarded up to three times the punitive damages at the judge’s discretion. This means that, on top of the base damages, Huppo Pharma can legally apply to the court for triple damages, with a maximum final win of $60.6 million

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4. What exactly did Hebo win in this lawsuit?

Many industry insiders wonder: with so many innovative domestic pharmaceutical companies, why can Hebo Medmed beat global giants like Amgen head-on?

The core reason is not litigation skills,

It lies in truly mastering the fundamental innovation patents at the source.

The core competition in the biopharmaceutical industry is essentially a competition for underlying technology patents. Most domestic pharmaceutical companies focus on backend drug molecules, indication improvements, and process optimization, which is application-oriented innovation; while Hebo Pharma’s Grosveld patent is a platform-based underlying technology for antibody R&D, representing source-level, fundamental, and universal core innovations covering the entire antibody drug R&D system, with broad protection, high technical barriers, and irreplaceability

Amgen’s Teneobio core antibody technology path essentially borrows and applies this underlying technology system, but has not obtained any authorization

For decades, it was mostly overseas giants who used their underlying patents to sue domestic pharmaceutical companies for infringement and demand high compensation, leaving domestic companies in a disadvantaged position of passive defense and compensation. But this time, the situation has completely reversed: Chinese companies hold source patents and reverse-judged that the international giant committed intentional infringement. The jury’s swift and unanimous verdict fully demonstrates that Hebo Pharma’s patent ownership is clear, technology comparison is clear, and the infringement facts are conclusive, leaving no room for ambiguity

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5. Industry significance

The value of this case far exceeds the financial compensation, completely rewriting the underlying landscape of global biopharmaceutical patent competition.

• First, to end the stereotype that “domestic innovation has no core patents.” For a long time, overseas capital markets and multinational pharmaceutical companies have generally believed that China’s biopharmaceutical innovation is mainly follow-up and improvement-based innovation, lacking independent and controllable underlying platform patents. This victory proves that Chinese biotech now possesses complete capabilities in original origin, breakthroughs at the grassroots, global layout, and cross-border rights protection.
• Second, it reverses the passive situation of patent competition among Chinese and foreign pharmaceutical companies. In the past, domestic pharmaceutical companies going overseas long faced patent blockades, malicious lawsuits, and high claims from overseas giants, with even a slight misstep risking product removal, market bans, and huge compensation claims. This reverse victory by Hebo Pharma sets a benchmark for domestic innovative pharmaceutical companies: holding core patents allows them to directly compete with international giants and gain the initiative in going global.
• Third, significantly enhance the global commercial value of domestic platform technologies. Antibody drugs are the largest global biopharmaceutical sector, with a market size exceeding $100 billion. Winning the core platform patent lawsuit for Hebo Pharma will greatly enhance its bargaining power in technology licensing, overseas cooperation, and project going global, and in the future, it will completely free itself from a passive position in global technology transfer, joint R&D, and commercialization cooperation.
• Moreover, this victory provides a replicable and referable practical model for domestic biopharmaceutical intellectual property protection, overseas patent layout, and cross-border rights protection, proving that a solid underlying patent layout and a professional overseas legal system are the core confidence for domestic innovative pharmaceutical companies to globalize.

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6. Conclusion

From passive litigation to proactive rights protection, from following improvements to leading at the source, the five-year patent battle against Amgen with Platinum Pharma ended in a decisive victory. The maximum potential compensation of $60.6 million is not only a huge profit, but also a milestone for China’s biomedicine industry from “Made in China” to “Original in China.” The next one won’t be far off.

In the future, intellectual property will undoubtedly become the core moat for domestic innovative drugs going global. As more and more local companies deepen their foundational technologies, lay out global patents, and dare to defend their rights across borders, China’s global voice in the biopharmaceutical industry will continue to rise, truly achieving the leap from a pharmaceutical giant to a pharmaceutical powerhouse. Zhizhong Deben is deeply engaged in intellectual property services in the biopharmaceutical field. With professional global patent layout, infringement risk prevention, and cross-border rights protection support, it helps domestic innovative drug companies build strong intellectual property barriers and safeguard the overseas expansion of original Chinese technologies.

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