The article cowritten by Dr. Craig B. Thompson in the scientific journal Cancer Cell pointed to a promising approach to fighting cancer. By targeting metabolic enzymes, he suggested, it might be possible to alter cancer pathways and starve tumors of nutrients.
Thompson’s piece didn’t just capture the attention of scientists. Officials at the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked as director of the Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, also took notice. They wondered if Thompson’s breakthrough research could lead to patents that would give the school a lucrative source of revenue.
One of those officials, Robert H. Schenkel, sent Thompson an e-mail in February 2010, asking to talk about such a possibility. But when Schenkel and two associates from Penn’s technology transfer office met with him a couple weeks later, they were surprised. Thompson downplayed the significance of the article, and an earlier one he wrote for the journal Nature, insisting the findings weren’t worthy of being patented, they later recalled.
Unbeknownst to Schenkel and his colleagues, however, a Cambridge biotechnology start-up cofounded by Thompson had applied for at least 20 patents on the same research he described in the journals, according to a lawsuit filed by the university last month in US District Court in New York.
The suit alleges that Thompson, now president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, essentially stole discoveries made at Penn to start his company, Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. Penn said that as a condition of employment, he had agreed to give the university right of first refusal for any discoveries that came out of school labs.
The case, which pits an elite university against the leader of one of the nation’s most prestigious cancer hospitals, highlights the heated competition for control over groundbreaking biomedical discoveries that can win inventors bragging rights and shower their sponsors with rich licensing fees. It centers on the activity of Agios, a low-profile company tucked in the warren of buildings behind the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“As a result of Thompson’s breach of his fiduciary duties with the university, the university’s opportunity to protect valuable intellectual property was limited or destroyed,’’ Penn said in its legal filings.
Thompson referred questions to his lawyer, Allan J. Arffa, a partner at the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Arffa released a statement quoting Thompson as saying, “I believe the allegations of Penn’s complaint to be without merit, both factually and legally.’’
Agios, which also is named in the suit, released a statement insisting the complaint and a separate one filed earlier by the Abramson institute are “without merit and Agios believes it has done nothing wrong.’’ The company said it “fully expects to be vindicated.’’
Penn says the university suffered more than $100 million in damages, while the Abramson suit contends the cancer research institute is entitled to more than $1 billion. The case is being heard by US District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in New York.
With the number of collaborations growing among academic researchers, and between universities and start-up companies, the potential for a surge in patent litigation is ripe, said Harry Glorikian, managing partner at life sciences consulting firm Scientia Advisors in Cambridge. Glorikian said he is tracking several patent suits on both US coasts.
“It’s a never-ending story of who sues who when,’’ Glorikian said. “When one side feels they aren’t being compensated for the work that they do or someone is trying to shortchange them, they’re almost in a position where they have to sue. They have to protect their turf.’’
Thompson, a longtime leader in research into how changes in the control of cell metabolism contribute to cancer cell development, served as a Penn faculty member from 1998 to last October when he resigned to take the job as president and chief executive at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. At Penn, he frequently collaborated with outside academics, including Dr. Tak Wah Mak, a member of the University of Toronto faculty of medicine.
“Dr. Thompson is of the highest integrity,’’ said Mak, who is not named in the Penn suit and would not discuss it. “We’ve been collaborators since 1984. We have a half-dozen [scientific] papers that are considered classics. They’ve been quoted a thousand times.’’
The partnership that would lead to the birth of Agios was struck at an April 2007 convention of the American Association of Cancer Research in Los Angeles, where Mak heard a presentation by cell biologist and biochemist Dr. Lewis C. Cantley, a professor at Harvard Medical School and director of cancer research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Recognizing their overlapping research areas, Mak remembers approaching Cantley afterward.
“I said to him, ‘You and I and Craig [Thompson] should be working together,’ ’’ Mak said. Cantley, who also is not part of the Penn suit, did not respond to a request for comment.
Four months later, Thompson, Cantley, and Mak cofounded a company that would become Agios the following year. The biotech registered to do business in Massachusetts in September 2007, and initially operated out of the offices of its financial backer, life sciences venture capital firm Third Rock Ventures, in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. Kevin Starr, the Third Rock partner who served temporarily as interim chief executive at Agios, would not comment for this story.
Almost from the start, Agios was thought to have promising technology. Between March 2009 and March 2010, it filed 20 applications with the US patent office, 16 before the article in Nature was published and all before the Cancer Cell article was published, according to the lawsuit. In 2008 and 2011, it raised $111 million in two venture capital rounds. It also received a $130 million upfront payment from Celgene Corp. in 2010 as part of a deal giving the Summit, N.J., biopharmaceutical company an exclusive option to develop drugs based on Agios technology.
“It’s an opportune time to be looking at how metabolism can be driving cancer and how we can find real good targets to attack cancer,’’ Mak said. “The three of us got together and said, ‘We can find the right [cancer] pathways to target.’ ’’
Dr. David Schenkein, who joined Agios as chief executive in 2009, became spokesman for a national alliance of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that promoted policies and regulations favoring US medical innovation. “There are very few incentives in the United States right now for entrepreneurs to move into this field,’’ Schenkein lamented in a 2010 interview with the Globe. He, too, declined to discuss the Penn lawsuit for this story.
Meanwhile, at Penn, where Thompson oversaw the work of hundreds of cancer researchers and promised to “promptly’’ disclose any potential discoveries that could lead to patents, officials were unaware of Agios until after the scientific journal pieces were published, according to the lawsuit. By not giving Penn officials advance notice of the articles, the school said, Thompson committed “fraudulent concealment.’’
Assuming the case goes forward, it is certain to direct a spotlight not only on the origins of Agios but on the power dynamics between academic research labs and biotechnology start-ups, which are crucial to the Boston area’s economy. By all accounts, there is much at stake.
“The university was dependent upon Thompson to disclose any inventions,’’ Penn said in court papers, “. . . and to cooperate in protecting the intellectual property of the university.’’
Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.