The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware entered judgment in favor of Biohaven Ltd., a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing therapies for people with debilitating diseases, and Yale University, formalizing a combined $4 million award against Avilar Therapeutics, Inc. and RA Capital Management GP, LLC in a trade secret misappropriation case.

The judgment, entered by the Honorable Jennifer L. Hall, United States District Judge, follows the jury's July 24, 2026, verdict finding that RA Capital and Avilar willfully and maliciously misappropriated a Yale trade secret related to its MODA targeted protein degradation platform, and that RA Capital separately breached its 2019 confidentiality agreement with Yale. The Court awarded $2 million to Yale for the breach of contract and $1 million each to Yale and Biohaven for the misappropriation.

Yale professor David Spiegel developed the MODA platform to bind and eliminate disease-causing extracellular proteins, presenting it at Yale's Lifesciences Pitchfest in 2018. RA Capital signed a confidentiality agreement with Yale in April 2019 to evaluate a potential partnership, and negotiations ended without a deal that August. Biohaven and Yale alleged RA Capital and Avilar, which RA Capital helped establish later that year, used confidential information from those discussions to build a competing drug program instead.

Biohaven licensed the MODA platform from Yale to develop and commercialize the technology. Biohaven and Yale filed suit against Avilar and RA Capital in March 2023, and the case proceeded to a jury trial beginning July 20, 2026, with the verdict returned July 24, 2026. The Court entered judgment on August 24, 2026, formalizing the award.