A jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware found Guardant Health liable for infringing on patents held by TwinStrand Biosciences and licensed to the University of Washington. The infringement involves Guardant’s digital sequencing technology used in its cancer test kits, which allegedly employs methods covered by two patents related to a duplex consensus sequencing method. The lawsuit, filed in 2021, also claimed that the infringement was willful. As a result, Guardant Health has been ordered to pay damages amounting to $83.4 million.
Guardant Health has expressed strong disagreement with the decision and plans to appeal. Helmy Eltoukhy, co-founder and co-CEO of Guardant Health, stated that the ruling overlooks the strengths and merits of their research and development and intellectual property, which were developed over more than a decade.