Amgen Claims "Massive Conspiracy" with Chemo Biosim

March 7, 2017

Amgen has filed a trade secret action in California State Court against Coherus Biosciences, which is seeking approval of a biosimilar of Amgen’s chemotherapy drug, Neulasta.

Amgen alleges that Coherus has been poaching its employees and using stolen trade secrets to expedite its biosimilar production process. In its suit, Amgen accused disloyal former employees now working for Coherus of running a “massive conspiracy” that gave the biosimilar company an unfair leg up in bringing a Neulasta biosimilar to market.

“Coherus does not need Amgen’s proprietary information to compete or be successful. We are proud of Coherus’ novel clinical development strategy and novel clinical study designs that were never performed at Amgen and are not Amgen’s intellectual property” said the Coherus CEO, Denny Lanfear -- himself a former Amgen employee -- in a press release.

Amgen says that Coherus has pursued and hired dozens of ex-Amgen employees, including many with deep technical or commercial knowledge about Neulasta.

Read the Law360 coverage (registration required)
Read the Coherus response