AbbVie and its subsidiary Allergan have had a long run of unchallenged success in the market with cosmetic and therapeutic treatment Botox. Now, the companies have extended their dominance to the courtroom.
A Delaware jury has agreed with AbbVie’s claim that in creating a rival treatment for Botox, Revance Therapeutics infringed three patents covering the formulation and manufacturing process of the megablockbuster. With the verdict, the jury awarded (PDF) a royalty payment of $56 million from Revance to AbbVie.
In rejecting Revance’s claim that the patents were invalid, the jury assigned royalty rates of 15% on one patent that remains ongoing and 12% and 4% on patents that expired in September 2023.
The royalties are to be paid on sales of Revance’s Botox rival Daxxify, which was approved in 2022 and accumulated revenue of $84 million in 2023 and $79 million in the first three quarters of last year.
In August of last year, private skin care company Crown Laboratories bought out Nashville, Tennessee-based Revance for $924 million.
AbbVie, which acquired Allergan for $63 billion in 2020, filed its lawsuit against Revance the following year, asking for “reasonable royalty and lost profits.”
In 2023, AbbVie filed another lawsuit against Revance, claiming the company recruited key employees as part of a strategy to get its hands on proprietary information. The Illinois pharma giant characterized Revance’s tactics to compete as “desperate” and said the rival company has “taken shortcuts by misappropriating trade secrets.”
Botox has been a blockbuster since 2006 and topped the $2 billion mark in 2016. Last year, revenue from Botox reached $6 billion, with worldwide therapeutic sales ($3.3 billion) exceeding cosmetic sales ($2.7 billion).