Ono Pharmaceutical Co. has announced that it will fight a lawsuit filed by Nobel laureate Tasuku Honjo seeking about 22.6 billion yen in compensation for a patent related to the cancer immunotherapy drug Opdivo.
Honjo won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and is a distinguished professor at Kyoto University. He filed suit in the Osaka District Court on June 19, demanding part of the royalties paid to Ono Pharmaceutical by the U.S. pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., which markets Keytruda, a drug similar to Opdivo.
Ono Pharmaceutical, based in Osaka, released a statement on Monday saying it would take appropriate steps to contest the suit.
The company has also been at odds with Honjo about royalty payments based on sales of Opdivo. Ono Pharmaceutical claimed in its Monday statement that its payments were "reasonable."
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