Case Nos: CA-2024-002655/002675/002676 - [2025] EWCA Civ 936

The skilled team

It is common ground that the Patent is addressed to a skilled team interested in seeking to develop a new drug for the treatment of prostate cancer, and in particular a new antagonist to the androgen receptor.  The team would include a person with knowledge and skills in the relevant biology of prostate cancer (“the cancer biologist”) and a person with knowledge and skills in medicinal chemistry (“the medicinal chemist”). The cancer biologist would understand the underlying disease and biological target, and use that understanding to develop a hypothesis for how the disease may be treated. The cancer biologist would select and/or devise suitable in vitro and in vivo testing. The medicinal chemist would be well-versed in drug design, synthesis, optimisation, purification and characterisation. The medicinal chemist would interpret in vitro and in vivo data for any novel therapy candidates that may be created during the research process and evaluate a compound’s physicochemical properties, pharmacokinetics and wider drug properties. That work might be done in conjunction with the cancer biologist.