Mr Justice Mellor has handed down judgment in Pfizer v GSK [2024] EWHC 2523 (Pat). The case concerned vaccines to respiratory syncytial virus, the most common worldwide cause of lower respiratory tract infection, and a virus which infects almost everyone by the age of two years.

Legal aspects of the case include obviousness, plausibility, classical and breadth of claim insufficiency, priority, and infringement including by equivalence. Mellor J found the patents in suit invalid for lack of inventive step and granted an Arrow declaration. Mellor J also made observations as to whether and how a case of secondary obviousness should be pleaded.

The judgment can be read here.

Katherine Moggridge was instructed for Pfizer. Thomas Lunt was instructed for GSK.