A long-running dispute between a promising Delaware start-up company and a German research organization is headed to Chancery Court.
iBio, Inc. filed the suit against Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft , which operates a site in Newark. iBio operated out of the Fraunhofer center for years.
iBio claims Fraunhofer offered iBio’s technology to third parties and otherwise exploitied its work for Fraunhofer’s own benefit. The suit goes on to accuse Fraunhofer of refusing to perform required technology transfer to iBio technology it created exclusively for iBio’s ownership and use.
IBio is seeking damages of more than $200 million.
Reed Oslan of Kirkland & Ellis LLP will be heading up iBio’s litigation team along with lawyers at Morris, Nichols, Arsht, and Tunnell LLP, Wilmington
iBio, develops plant-based biopharmaceuticals. It has access to a large-scale development and manufacturing facility of its subsidiary iBio CDMO, LLC. in Bryan, Texas.
The company uses robotics to grow plants that can be used to produce proteins for vaccines.
The company’s stock price spiked on speculation that its vaccines could be used in the fight against the Ebola pandemic. The stock price later plummeted as the crisis eased.
IBio’s stock price has since fallen to 28 cents a share, with its stock market value now standing at $26 million.
