Andrea Weiss Jeffries

Andrea Weiss Jeffries

Andrea Weiss Jeffries serves as the leader of the Jones Day Los Angeles IP practice and is a key member of the firm’s trade secret task force. Her undergraduate chemistry degree is critical in much of the work she does with pharmaceutical clients.

“There have been a lot of changes in the field with new discoveries, but the basic principles do not change. How the drug in question works is a direct function of its chemistry. My chemistry background allows me to understand the prior art and help the judge understand the technology,” she said.

Jeffries currently represents Merck Sharp & Dohme Co. Inc. in Hatch-Waxman patent infringement actions against several generic drug maker defendant groups over the defendants’ Abbreviated New Drug Applications to the Food and Drug Administration seeking approval of generic versions of Bridion, a key agent for the reversal of some types of neuromuscular blockade in adults undergoing surgery. The case began with 16 defendants, many have settled. Trial is set for October. In Re Sugammadex, 2:20-cv-02576 (D. N.J., filed March 20, 2020).

“It’s a very successful drug that has been widely acclaimed by anesthesiologists, so there’s been wide interest on the generic side,” Jeffries said. “It’s a new chemical entity with strong patents and it has been used in Covid intubations for assistance with breathing.”

In September 2021 Jeffries and colleagues, representing Merck, settled a declaratory judgment action against a rival pharmaceutical company over several patents for the rival’s vaccine technology. The case arose over Merck’s new 15-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, known as Vaxneuvance. Merck Sharp & Dohme Co. Inc. v. Wyeth LLC, 1:21-cv-00024 (D. Del., filed Jan. 11, 2021).

“This vaccine protects against bacteria that cause a lot of disease,” Jeffries said. “It is a critical vaccine that is used worldwide, and the case settled favorably to our client.”

The billion-dollar patent infringement jury verdict Jeffries obtained in 2019 for clients Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Juno Therapeutics Inc. over a cancer treatment known as CAR-T cell therapy could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The big win was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which set a heightened written description requirement for patents. In January 2022, the circuit denied en banc review. Juno Therapeutics Inc. v. Kite Pharma Inc., 2020-1758 (CAFC, op. filed Aug. 26, 2021).

“The written description issue is of great interest,” Jeffries said. “The reversal was certainly disappointing, and we look forward to filing our cert petition and obtaining Supreme Court review.”

– John Roemer