Former employees used AllCells, LLC confidential information to quickly start-up competing company, Cepheus Bioscience, Inc.
ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A U.S District Court Judge has issued a preliminary injunction enjoining Defendants Cepheus Biosciences, Inc., and two of its employees, Jack Zhai and James Lee from disclosing or using AllCells’ proprietary information, including standard operating procedures (SOPs) which cover various aspects of product manufacturing and quality control, and business information pertaining to AllCells’ customers, key contacts within a customer-company, product pricing, and other sales related information. The hearing for the injunction took place at the United States District Court, Northern District of California San Francisco Courthouse, presided over by District Judge Edward M. Chen.
AllCells, LLC filed suit against Defendants Cepheus Biosciences, Inc., Jack Zhai and James Lee, asserting claims for, inter alia, trade secret misappropriation under both state and federal law. Mr. Zhai and Mr. Lee are former employees of AllCells, LLC and currently work for Cepheus. The limited scope of the injunction will not affect the availability of damages should AllCells later prove not only that its SOPs were protected trade secrets but also that Defendants used or disclosed not only the SOPs but derivative information therefrom found protectable under law. Read the complete ruling here.
About AllCells, LLC
AllCells is a biotechnology company dedicated to providing researchers and biomanufacturing organizations with high quality primary cells that enable drug discovery, preclinical development, and manufacturing of cell therapies. Leveraging its expertise in hematology and immunology cell isolations together with on-site hematologic tissue collection operations, AllCells maintains a large repository of donor profiles that can be qualified for various biomedical applications. Freshly collected tissue is immediately processed in contiguous manufacturing facilities to produce purified cell types having unparalleled quality and consistency. Cells are shipped worldwide, or fresh cells can be immediately utilized in fee-for-service cell-based assays, AllCellutions™. For more information, please visit www.allcells.com.
Contacts
AllCells, LLC
Wayne E. Vaz, 510-671-8676
Vice President, Corporate Development