PHILADELPHIA — A children's hospital is suing pharmaceutical companies, citing alleged fraud, misappropriation of trade secrets and unfair competition.
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) filed a complaint on Dec. 26 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Richard Postel, ViaGenetics Inc., and The Genesis Project Inc. for alleged violation of the Pennsylvania Uniform Trade Secrets Act.
The complaint states that in September 2016, plaintiff's important confidential research was obtained by defendants by allegedly deceiving at least one of its lead researchers into believing that defendants were interested in partnering with CHOP to raise funds that would help the hospital to commercialize its research findings.
Despite entering into a Mutual Confidentiality and Nondisclosure Agreement, under which defendants agreed not to use gained information other than for the purposes of evaluating the potential business relationship, defendants allegedly either publicly disclosed or were threatening to publicly disclosed plaintiff's trade secrets, protected confidential information and other intellectual property by filling numerous United States patent applications. The loss and misuse not only harms CHOP, but leads to a decline in overall pediatric care, the suit claims.
The plaintiff holds Richard Postel, ViaGenetics Inc. and The Genesis Project Inc. responsible because the defendants allegedly provided false assurances to plaintiff that the misappropriated information would not be improperly used or disclosed so as to cultivate a false relationship of trust for the purpose of obtaining the misappropriated Information for their benefit.
The plaintiff requests a trial by jury and seeks an order to return all the misappropriated information, constructive trust to prevent any unjust enrichment, grant costs, expenses, and such other and further relief as the court deems just and proper. They are represented by Thomas Biemer, Edward Behm Jr. and Mark Halderman of Dilworth Paxson LLP in Philadelphia.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Case No. is 2:18-cv-05551-GEKP.