Already the largest patent infringement verdict in U.S. history, the $2.5 billion in damages awarded to Merck’s Idenix unit could grow by as much as three times the amount assessed by a federal jury in Wilmington on Thursday.
After a nearly two-week trial, the jury upheld the validity of a patent Merck acquired on hepatitis C treatments back in 2014, and said California-based Gilead Sciences Inc. owed 10 percent royalties on the $25.4 billion it had made on sales of its Sovaldi and Harvoni drugs through August.
