A federal jury has awarded Yale University and a New Haven-based biopharmaceutical company $4 million after determining a venture capital firm from Boston misappropriated trade secrets, court records show.
The jury found that RA Capital Management and Avilar Therapeutics willfully and maliciously misappropriated a medical technology developed by Yale chemistry professor David Spiegel and licensed by Biohaven Therapeutics.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Delaware in 2023, claimed that RA Capital received trade secrets about Yale’s so-called MODA technology after expressing interest in a partnership and signing a confidential disclosure agreement.
Lawyers for Yale alleged during the five-day trial that RA Capital instead set up a competing company using the proprietary technology, which captures and degrades disease-causing proteins through the liver.
“We feel gratified the jury recognized the importance of protecting the confidential scientific advancements that universities like Yale work so hard to develop,” Yale lawyers Nick Spear and Kalpana Srinivasan said in a statement.
Court records show the jury found RA Capital breached a confidential disclosure agreement with Yale in addition to misappropriating the trade secret. The jury awarded $2 million in damages for the breach and an additional $2 million for the misappropriation.
In statement, RA Capital Management General Counsel Craig Randall noted the jury rejected eight of the nine alleged trade-secret claims and awarded plaintiffs a fraction of the damages that were sought.
“RA Capital and Avilar continue to maintain that these claims lack merit and that there was no wrongdoing” Randall said. “We look forward to pursuing post-trial and appellate remedies and to prosecuting our patent infringement counter-claims against Biohaven.”
