Andrea Weiss Jeffries

Jeffries led a Jones Day team in securing a $752 million patent infringement jury verdict for clients Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Juno Therapeutics over a cancer treatment known as CAR-T cell therapy. The jury deliberated for only a day — but that was just the beginning.

She and co-counsel from other firms have since engaged in extensive post-trial litigation that has boosted the sum to $1.19 billion.

The verdict came in December 2019. The case remains ongoing with an appeal pending at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Juno Therapeutics Inc. v. Kite Pharma Inc., 2:17-cv-07639 (C.D. Cal., filed Oct. 18, 2017); Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer v. Kite Pharma Inc., 2020-1758 (Fed. Cir., filed May 1, 2020).

“I’m working closely with the appellate team,” said Jeffries, who has nearly 25 years of experience as an IP litigator. “At this stage of my career, I accept that that’s just how it is. I wish it were faster and so does my client.”

On Jeffries and colleagues’ post-trial motions, U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez of Los Angeles first boosted the verdict to $778 million to account for the defendant’s infringing sales that were not factored into the jury’s award.

Then he added enhanced damages of more than $389 million after finding Kite’s infringement to have been willful. There’s also an ongoing royalty of 27.6 percent on Kite’s revenues through the patent’s expiration.

Gutierrez denied all of Kite’s post-trial motions to reverse the verdict and get a new trial.

Meanwhile, Jeffries represents biopharmaceutical multinational Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. in two significant matters.

With other firms, she is battling Wyeth LLC, seeking a declaratory judgment that Merck’s new pneumococcal vaccine V114 - expected to win FDA approval in July - does not infringe Wyeth’s rival Prevnar 13. Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Wyeth LLC, 1:21-CV00024 (D.Del., filed Jan. 11, 2021).

“Everyone’s currently focused on Covid vaccines, but here we have worldwide litigation ongoing over pneumonia vaccines,” Jeffries said. “Merck wants to clear the path for its new product, and we want to show that Wyeth’s patents are invalid or non-infringing.”

Also, Jeffries leads a Jones Day team that with co-counsel represents Merck in consolidated Hatch-Waxman patent infringement actions against 16 generic drugmaker defendant groups that seek FDA approval of their versions of Bridion, Merck’s brand name for sugammadex, a drug used post-surgery to reverse neuromuscular blockade.

“We’re getting close to the claim construction phase,” Jeffries said. In re Sugammadex, 20-CV2576 (D. N.J., filed March 26, 2020).

Jeffries leads a team of lawyers in these cases, and she called it a satisfying time in her career.

“I enjoy now working with young lawyers, helping and guiding them,” she said. “It’s a joy for me now. Watching younger lawyers make partner puts a smile on my face.”

— John Roemer