Scion Biomedical sued board member and interim chief strategy and operating officer Allison London Brown, accusing her of poaching trade secrets for her startup medical device company, Aegis Women’s Health Technologies.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida, alleges that Brown pledge to keep her interests in Scion and Aegis separate but failed to do so. The lawsuit also accuses her of interfering with Scion’s relationship with 1 of its scientific advisors and of filing a patent application that might include technology based on Scion’s high molecular weight chitosan biomaterial, according to court documents.
"Brown abused her position and breached her fiduciary duty by, among other things, deliberately, without justification and dishonestly, usurping for Aegis a Scion business relationship, potentially misappropriating confidential information belonging to Scion, and upon information and belief, filing a patent application on behalf of her own company Aegis that may include chitosan-based technology," according to the documents. "Brown knew all along that she had no intention of merging Aegis into Scion on reasonable terms thereby sabotaging the capital raise, which is exactly what happened."
"As a direct and proximate result of Brown’s intentional and unjustifiable actions, Scion is unable to engage [scientific advisory board member Samuel Hudson] without fearing a conflict of interest, thereby causing Scion to suffer significant damages because now its own development plans are delayed. Moreover, it is possible that Brown used Scion’s confidential trade secret information in developing her own chitosan-based gel formulation and/or in her own patent application filed with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office," according to the lawsuit.
"Scion Biomedical Inc. demands that judgment be entered against Allison London Brown for declaratory judgment that any contractual obligations Scion had to Brown be declared null and void, that Brown return all Scion shares issued to her as a Scion board member, that she return all payments related to her failure to complete all her obligations, and that Scion be awarded damages, interest, attorneys’ fees, costs and for such other and further relief as this court deems just and proper," according to the documents.