Two months after being sued by Illumina over the alleged theft of trade secrets, Bay Area biotech Guardant Health fired back this week, rejecting the DNA sequencing giant’s claims and asking a federal judge to dismiss the suit.
In a motion filed Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Guardant’s lawyers argued that claims that its core patents are based on stolen trade secrets were too vague to prove that Illumina should have ownership over Guardant patents. And they reiterated their view that the timing of Illumina’s lawsuit, just months after its $8 billion acquisition of early cancer detection company Grail, showed the sequencing company is trying to snuff out rivals in a fast-growing market.
