Western Australia’s health department has dragged its own lawyers into a medicine ownership spat with leading scientist Dr Marian Sturm, with the parties to head for peace talks behind closed doors.

For more than a year, the East Metropolitan Health Service has been locked in a bitter legal battle with the former boss of Royal Perth Hospital’s cell and tissue therapies facility, her public company Isopogen, and two former employees.

The lawsuit centres around allegations Sturm and her two coworkers unlawfully took the rights to a treatment developed over the course of her 15-year stint at the hospital.

The development of an improved method of manufacturing mesenchymal stromal cells, used in the treatment of inflammatory illnesses, was registered in Sturm’s name and that of her capital-raising vehicle Isopogen.

Isopogen raised enough capital to support clinical trials of the patent before it was granted approval in Australia, the United States, South Africa, Japan, Israel, and Singapore.

The EMHS claims Sturm exploited intellectual property rights and breached her contract by declaring herself the owner, and is now claiming its former lawyers were complicit in making that happen.

Last week, the state-run health service opened a second battlefront in the tug-of-war, with de-registered patent attorneys Griffith Hack, its insurer, and lawyers Russell Berry and Stuart Boyer named as new defendants.

In the new writ lodged in the Supreme Court, the EMHS claimed the parties neglected to disclose that one or more of them were acting in Sturm’s interests, in breach of the retainer Griffith Hack signed to protect and commercialise the medicine on its behalf.

The EMHS wants the court to issue orders confirming the alleged actions constituted a breach of the retainer and for Griffith Hack to pay compensation.