Illumina sued Redwood City-based Guardant Health and its co-founders Helmy Eltoukhy and AmirAli Talasaz last week on grounds that they used Illumina’s intellectual property to file patents for Guardant, and did so while Eltoukhy was still on payroll at Illumina. The San Diego company wants the patents that Guardant filed turned over to them.
Guardant Health is a liquid biopsy company whose FDA-approved tests help guide treatment decisions for patients with advanced cancer. The company’s ultimate goal is to detect cancer at its earliest stage that can lead to therapeutic or other intervention, which in turn would boost chances of long term survival for cancer patients.
According to the lawsuit that Illumina filed, back in 2008 and 2009 respectively, Eltoukhy and Talasaz joined the molecular diagnostics and DNA sequencing company. Each signed a contract that said they would adhere to several terms during employment that included among other things the following: not competing with Illumina, protect Illumina’s confidential and proprietary information, and return Illumina materials to the company upon termination of their employment.
However, in 2011, while both were employed at Illumina, Eltoukhy and Talasaz founded Guardant Health, the lawsuit alleged. Illumina claims that the two drew on Illumina’s intellectual property and internal company information to create Guardant’s technology. The following year in June 2012, Talasaz left Illumina to work at Guardant full time.
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