Fascinating, how Tela Bio and Aroa collaborated.
http://media.bizj.us/view/img/5917261/corrected-redacted-lifecell-v-tela-bio-otsc-4-30-15.pdf
Tela Bio is a new venture based in Pennsylvania and incorporated on April 17, 2012 by the Individual Defendants, and allegedly, also by Dr. David McQuillan, LifeCell’s former Director of Research and Development. LifeCell’s Complaint alleges that Defendants, acting together with Dr. McQuillan, willfully misappropriated LifeCell’s trade secrets and proprietary information to develop a hernia repair product that LifeCell alleges is being introduced to replace LifeCell’s existing Strattice Reconstructive Tissue Matrix product. LifeCell also alleges that Defendants pirated ten of its sales representatives, all of whom are bound by non-competition covenants, to sell Defendants’ product in competition with Strattice.
By way of background, Dr. McQuillan was the director of R&D at LifeCell for over a decade. Plaintiff avers that from its inception, Dr. McQuillan played a substantial role in the development of Strattice, and he was one of a limited number of individuals with full access to LifeCell’s trade secrets and other proprietary information related to Strattice. He was responsible for overseeing technological innovation and development generally at LifeCell, and was involved with a number of product development projects generally related to the same technology as Strattice.
Mesynthes is a biotechnology company founded in 2008. In 2009, it patented extracellular matrix (ECM) technology based on ovine rumen (sheep forestomach), and developed two product lines based on this technology which differ with respect to their final intended use. The first, called EDT, is for topical applications and received clearance from the FDA in 2010. The second, called ERT, is intended for surgical applications but could not be marketed for hernia repair. The
Individual Defendants, who were looking to invest in promising medical technologies, learned about the patented ERT technology and met with the CEO of Mesynthes, Brian Ward, in early 2012. They decided to pursue collaboration with Mesynthes for the development of a product based on ERT, and one that could be marketed in the United States. Accordingly, the Individual Defendants formed Tela Bio as the vehicle for their proposed investment in the proprietary ERT technology. The Individual Defendants then allegedly contacted Dr. McQuillan, due to his experience and technical expertise in order to evaluate the Mesynthes technology. This resulted in the creation of TELAMax.
The products at issue in this case are ECM, designed principally for use in hernia repair. As mentioned, Defendants’ product is called TELAMax, and is derived from sheep tissue. LifeCell’s tissue repair products have been considered the “gold standard” in the industry. One such product is AlloDerm, developed in the 1990s and continues to be sold today for a variety of applications. AlloDerm is derived from human dermis. In the early 2000s, LifeCell began to experiment with ECMs fabricated from pig skin, the efforts of which culminated in the release of Strattice. Strattice has been sold since 2008 and is derived from porcine dermine (pig skin).
Defendants allege that certain key elements of the Strattice process, such as the composition of the decellularization solution, were simply carried over without modification from the publicly-known AlloDerm process. Defendants have made changes to every single one of the key seven steps in the manufacturing process of TELAMax, Plaintiffs allege, such that Defendants’ process mirrors that of Strattice.
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