San Francisco
Practice: litigation
Specialty: real estate, commercial
Explaining to a jury the complexities involved in a high-stakes pharmaceutical case isn't easy, but Chippey was able to bring it home, winning a $516 million judgment for client Asahi Kasei Pharma Corp.
Key, Chippey said, was his ability to communicate difficult medical terms in a jury-friendly way. In describing pulmonary arterial hypertension, for instance, which was at the core of the case, he compared the disease to the gradual closing of a 16-lane highway to one "where there is no traffic flowing."
"There are ways to convey the information in an effective, understandable and somewhat dramatic way," Chippey said.
Otherwise, he added, "You can get lost in the medicine, in the science of it, and not deliver the message you need to deliver."
The jury found that defendants Actelion Ltd., a Swiss bio-pharmaceutical firm, and associated defendants, had interfered with a 2006 license agreement, quashing Asahi Kasei Pharma Corp.'s development of a promising new drug that would have treated such potentially deadly ailments as pulmonary arterial hypertension. Asahi Kasei Pharma Corp. v. Actelion Ltd., CIV 478533 (San Mateo Super. Ct., filed Nov. 19, 2008).
Chippey showed that the defendants' motive was to keep the market free for Actelion's own drug Tracleer.
- PAT BRODERICK
#275848
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