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Biopharmaceutical firm United Therapeutics Corp. has accused a former executive of violating an employment agreement by taking ideas to a rival company to develop a competing lung treatment.

In a complaint that hit North Carolina Business Court on Friday, the drugmaker asked that it be handed any inventions, discoveries, and ideas by Robert Roscigno for competitor Liquidia Technologies Inc. concerning its inhalable treatment for certain lung conditions because he allegedly took ideas and documentation against the employment agreement.

United Therapeutics Ex-Executive Contract Breach

United Therapeutics said Roscigno worked for two subsidiaries, Lung Biotechnology and Lung Rx, from 1997 to 2007, eventually becoming a company president, and he was "deeply involved" in the creation of the patented Tyvaso treatment, an inhaler that delivers a drug to treat pulmonary hypertension.

Employment agreements he signed barred him from taking any inventions or concepts he created for United Therapeutics to a rival, the complaint said. He was also disallowed from sharing confidential information and trade secrets.

Through information revealed in two separate lawsuits, United Therapeutics said it learned Roscigno had taken concepts and documentation to Liquidia after he began working for it in 2011.