IRVINE, Calif., Nov. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — In one of the largest Lanham Act false advertising verdicts in history, a team of Keller Anderle Scolnick (KAS) attorneys today recorded a massive jury trial win in Guardant Health Inc. v. Natera Inc.
The verdict was a complete sweep for Guardant Health: $75 million for corrective advertising, $42 million for disgorgement of profits and $175.5 million in punitive damages. The trial was held in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Plaintiff Guardant Health was represented by Keller Anderle Scolnick attorneys Jennifer Keller and Chase Scolnick as co-lead trial counsel, along with KAS lawyers Craig Harbaugh and Greg Sergi. The KAS team was backed by Saul Perloff, Christopher LaVigne, Trey Hebert, Andre Hanson and Kathy Grant of A&O Shearman. Natera was represented by a team of partners from Quinn Emanuel Uruquart & Sullivan.
Per Jennifer Keller, “This litigation was necessary to set the record straight. Guardant’s Reveal assay detects post-surgery colorectal cancer (CRC) recurrence by a blood-only test for circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), and is life-saving for many patients.
Unlike Natera’s competing tissue-dependent Signatera assay, Reveal™ provides recurrence results without a tumor sample, making it simpler, faster, and the only option for patients lacking sufficient tumor tissue to test, who comprise up to one-third of CRC patients.
Natera’s campaign to discredit Guardant Reveal™ by spreading false information was early, relentless, and unconscionable.”
Guardant commercially launched Reveal™ in February 2021. But before Reveal™ was even launched, Natera blanketed the oncology market with negative and false comparative ads that unfairly characterized and damaged Reveal. It pressured a prestigious medical journal to suppress the results of a clinical trial showing the efficacy of Reveal. (The journal published the study anyway.) It tried to interfere with Reveal’s gaining Medicare approval. It attacked the work of the Harvard doctors who conducted the study.
“Justice was finally done today,” said Jennifer Keller. “Our client Guardant Health was completely vindicated and can now begin educating the oncology market about the true benefits of Reveal. We could not be happier for Guardant.”
SOURCE Keller Anderle Scolnick LLP
