GeoMx instruments represent less than 0.2% of Bruker’s total revenue. Image credit: testing/Shutterstock.

US-based Bruker said it expects to promptly seek a stay of any injunction that is ordered by a court that found its business NanoString at fault in a patent infringement lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed by 10x Genomics and relates to products that profile spatial distribution of RNA and protein expression across a tissue sample. In a November 2023 ruling, the Delaware district court sided with 10x Genomics, saying that NanoString’s GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler infringed on seven patents.

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NanoString, a publicly listed company at the time, filed for bankruptcy in February this year. A month later, Bruker acquired the business for $392.6m.

Shares in Bruker have been stable the past month, but are still down from highs in March this year due to weakened operating income. The company has a market cap of $8.86bn.

The court issued its ruling on post-trial motions on 23 December 2024, in which damages of $31.6m were upheld; enhanced damages, requested by 10x, were declined. The final motion, an injunction request by 10x, was granted by the court, which means sales of GeoMx products to new customers in the US will be halted.

Bruker said it “respectfully disagrees” with the decision to grant the injunction. Despite GeoMx instruments representing less than 0.2% of Bruker’s total revenue, the company is planning its own steps to protect the product line.

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“We expect to promptly seek a stay of any injunction that is finally ordered,” said Todd Garland, Bruker spatial biology division’s president.

“We also look forward to the appeal of our case being heard by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit,” he added.

Bruker has had a busy 2024 bolstering its position in the medical diagnostics market. In February, it spent $942m to acquire molecular diagnostics company ELITechGroup.

10x meanwhile is looking ahead to January 2025 – the date the injunction will be entered by the court. The order will stop Bruker from making, using, selling or offering the device and its associated instruments, reagents and services for RNA and protein detection. In a move to minimise disruption to research, 10x requested the injunction not to include researchers who installed a GeoMx instrument prior to November 2023.

Reacting to the injunction, 10x Genomics legal officer Eric Whitaker said the decision safeguards “decade-long investment in innovation and ensures [10x] can continue to develop groundbreaking technologies that help our customers revolutionise science.”