Pfizer is suing considered one of its staff for allegedly stealing confidential paperwork, together with these associated to its coronavirus vaccine, as she ready to take up a job with a competing organisation.
In a grievance filed Tuesday in a San Diego courtroom, the pharmaceutical main alleged that considered one of its affiliate administrators of statistics Chun Xiao Li breached the corporate’s confidentiality settlement after she uploaded over 12,000 recordsdata “from her Pfizer-issued laptop computer to a private Google Drive account and onto different private units.”
The allegedly misappropriated paperwork relate to a variety of matters, together with Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine research and its advice and evaluation regarding why the Pfizer and BioNTech relationship was profitable in comparison with different partnerships.
In its lawsuit, Pfizer mentioned that “though Ms Li initially gave the looks of cooperation, it seems that [she] as a substitute has misled Pfizer about what took, how she took it, when and why and people recordsdata (and probably others) might be discovered.”
“She went as far as to supply Pfizer’s safety group a decoy laptop computer, main Pfizer to imagine it was the one she used to obtain the 12,000 recordsdata from her Google Drive.” However the “forensic analyses confirmed it was not,” mentioned the New York-based drug maker.
Pfizer mentioned Ms Li was leaving the corporate after 15 years of service to work for its competitor Xencor, a California-based clinical-stage firm that focuses on therapies for most cancers and autoimmune illnesses, on 29 November.
The corporate has alleged that “Ms Li’s conduct, mixed together with her obvious imminent plan to start working at Xencor, makes it extremely doubtless that [she] will disclose and/or use Pfizer’s confidential, proprietary and trade-secret info.”
The courtroom on Tuesday granted Pfizer’s request quickly blocking Ms Li from utilizing Pfizer’s commerce secrets and techniques. US District Choose Cathy Ann Bencivengo additional mentioned that the corporate’s attorneys might evaluation the account and units on which she might probably have saved such information.
Ms Li has to date not issued a remark, whereas Xencor, which isn’t a defendant within the case, declined to touch upon the matter.
The following listening to on the case is listed for 9 December, the place the decide will contemplate an extended injunction.
Extra reporting from the wires