Lawsuit Alleges Professor Stole Student’s Research and Defrauded University of Millions

A University of Missouri at Kansas City professor who resigned in January amid allegations that he had exploited graduate students stole a student’s research and secretly sold it to a pharmaceutical company, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday by the university system.

The suit, filed in federal district court in Kansas City, Mo., alleges that the research has already earned the professor, Ashim Mitra, more than $1.5 million and could earn him $10 million more in royalties over the next five years.

The student, then a graduate research assistant at the university named Kishore Cholkar, developed a new way to more effectively deliver drugs through the eye, according to the lawsuit. Mitra allegedly sold Cholkar’s research to Auven Therapeutics Management, a pharmaceutical-development company based in the U.S. Virgin Islands, without the knowledge or approval of either the student or the university. The company then resold the invention to Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, a drug company in India, for $40 million plus royalties.

Last August the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Sun Pharmaceutical’s request to market the patented formula in a drug called Cequa, which could produce more than a billion dollars in revenue, according to court documents.

The lawsuit alleges that Mitra defrauded both the former student and the university of millions. According to the university’s patent guidelines, all inventions made by employees are its intellectual property.

Mitra could not be reached for comment, but he denied the accusations in a written statement to The Kansas City Star. “The complaint I received earlier this afternoon from the Curators of the University of Missouri,” he wrote, “was unexpected and disappointing. All of the alleged wrongdoing on the part of myself and my wife can be proven to be false.”

Cholkar is one of nearly a dozen graduate students who told the Star that Mitra had pressured them into doing menial work for him unrelated to their studies, such as bailing water from his flooded basement, doing lawn work, and caring for his home while he and his wife were away. Cholkar also told the Star that he had worked on a research project with Mitra and received no credit.

“That was my product, I worked day and night, and yet my name was not included,” Cholkar told the Star. “I was the only student who worked on that product. I put all my efforts into that product. I was cheated.”

The lawsuit was filed as a result of a continuing investigation into alleged misconduct by Mitra, according to a university statement.

Mitra was put on leave when allegations of his mistreatment of graduate students surfaced, in November. He was hired in 1994 as chair of the division of pharmaceutical sciences, a position he held until a year before his suspension. His resignation is effective on March 31.

The university said in its statement that it looks forward “to vigorously pursuing these claims in court.”

Zipporah Osei is an editorial intern at The Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @zipporahosei, or email her at zipporah.osei@chronicle.com.