10x Settles Bruker, Vizgen Patent Lawsuits

Topics Artificial Intelligence Bioprocessing Cancer Drug Discovery Genome Editing Infectious Diseases OMICs Translational Medicine

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Topics Artificial Intelligence Bioprocessing Cancer Drug Discovery Genome Editing Infectious Diseases OMICs Translational Medicine

Resources A-Lists eBooks/Perspectives Tutorials Peer-Reviewed Journals GEN Biotechnology Re:Gen Open New Products

10x Genomics has settled patent infringement lawsuits with a pair of rivals, Bruker and Vizgen, through settlements that could reshape competition within the emerging single-cell and spatial genomics fields.

On Wednesday of last week, Bruker said it became the second rival to settle with 10x in recent weeks, announcing that it had reached a “final settlement” intended to resolve their patent disputes and dismiss multiple lawsuits, while establishing a global series of patent cross-license agreements between the companies.

As a result of the settlement, ongoing lawsuits and administrative proceedings filed by both companies in several countries will be withdrawn, including actions pending in the United States, Germany, and before the European Unified Patent Court.

“This is honestly such good news,” said Arutha Kulasinghe, PhD, head of the clinical-oMx lab at the Frazer Institute, University of Queensland & the Queensland Spatial Biology Centre (QSBC) at the Wesley Research Institute. “Finally…a reset. Let’s refocus on the science.”

In its announcement of the settlement, 10x stated that Bruker will pay it $68 million in equal quarterly installments between the third quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, as well as ongoing royalties on sales of its spatial biology products through the life of the licensed patents.

“This is a great outcome for the scientific community, who can continue their work using Bruker’s CosMx and GeoMx spatial biology platforms without concern that litigation could interfere with their advancements in oncology, neurobiology, and other fields of research,” Mark R. Munch, PhD, president of the Bruker Nano Group, said in a statement. “We’re excited to be able to focus on the impact and value that these products provide for discovery research, translational research, and precision medicine, and we’re happy to have the distraction and expense of these legal cases behind us.”

In the statement and in an interview conducted last week, Serge Saxonov, CEO of 10x Genomics, defended 10x’s litigation strategy against competitors. “At 10x, we’ve always believed that bold, original science must be protected, not just for the benefit of a company, but for the entire scientific ecosystem,” Saxonov added. “It’s imperative for us to protect our inventions, given how much we invest and how important that is to the mission of the company. And if others end up infringing and copying our inventions, then we have to protect them. It is incumbent on us, both as a means of serving our mission and as a means of being fair to all our stakeholders.”

Earlier this year, 10x and Vizgen confirmed having settled their patent litigation, which centered on 10x’s Xenium In Situ single-cell spatial imaging platform and Vizgen’s MERSCOPE, designed to enable massively multiplexed, genome-scale nucleic acid imaging with what Vizgen says is high accuracy and unrivaled detection efficiency at subcellular resolution. MERSCOPE is intended to facilitate a wide range of tissue-scale basic research and translational medicine in oncology, immunology, neuroscience, infectious disease, developmental biology, cell therapy, and gene therapy.

The companies differ in what they have said publicly about their settlement. In its quarterly Form 10-Q filing, 10x said that it was paid $26 million upfront to resolve the litigation by Vizgen, which 10x said also agreed to pay it royalties on sales of products covered by IP that 10x exclusively licenses from Harvard University. Within its financial results, 10x recorded the $26 million upfront payment as a $9.2 million gain on settlement and $16.8 million of license and royalty revenue.

Xenium In Situ was developed by 10x using technology from ReadCoor, a company that 10x acquired in 2020 for $350 million. ReadCoor was founded by George M. Church, PhD, of Harvard Medical School. In 2016, Harvard licensed patents covering the technology exclusively to ReadCoor. In May 2024, a U.S. District Court judge granted Vizgen’s motion to expand its antitrust case against 10x and Harvard by adding allegations that accused both of conspiring to monopolize the market by obstructing Vizgen’s ability to compete globally. 10x denied wrongdoing and vowed to fight the antitrust allegations.

“During the quarter, we settled our worldwide patent litigation with Vizgen on very favorable terms,” Saxonov told analysts May 8 on the company’s earnings call to discuss first quarter 2025 results. “As one component of the settlement, we received $26 million that we allocated in part to operating expenses related to gain on settlement and in part to license and royalty revenue.”

“We find the comments made during the 10x Genomics earnings call to be incomplete and potentially misleading, because they do not fully characterize all of the payments and licensing at the core of the settlement agreement, which notably was reached among three parties,” Vizgen stated exclusively to GEN, referring to itself, 10x, and Harvard University.