Merck and Schering already sell a medicine, Vytorin, that combines Zetia with Merck's off-patent cholesterol medicine Zocor, once Lipitor's main rival.
Merck (nyse: MRK - news - people ) and Schering (nyse: SGP - news - people ) already sell a medicine, Vytorin, that combines Zetia with Merck's off-patent cholesterol medicine Zocor, once Lipitor's main rival.
But turning that patent into applied medicine and profits will require the input of investors and managers as well as researchers.
Simply put, a brand-name drugmaker agrees to pay a settlement to a generic rival in exchange for ending patent litigation and launching a copycat medicine at a future date.
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Since antianxiety medicine BuSpar went off-patent in April, for instance, sales of the drug have dropped 54%.
The goal: to create a drug that would prevent heart attacks and become a massive seller, potentially replacing Lipitor, the world's best-selling medicine, when it loses patent protection as early as 2010.
Drugs, by contrast, are heavily reliant on patent protection to keep cheap, copycat generics at bay--and the patent clock starts ticking as soon as a medicine is invented.
The news is a setback for Pfizer as it aims to build a large arsenal of anti-cancer medicines to help it grow earnings before big sellers like Lipitor, the top-selling medicine in the world, lose patent protection in coming years.
The news is a setback for Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ) as it aims to build a large arsenal of anti-cancer medicines to help it grow earnings before big sellers like Lipitor, the top-selling medicine in the world, lose patent protection in coming years.
Pharmaceutical companies must worry less about squeezing additional profits from old medicines by copying the last successful drug and insisting on additional patent protections and focus more on new and innovative medicine.
This meant building a team of anywhere from ten to fifty people to deal with all the complexities of the process: chemistry, biology, regulatory affairs, clinical medicine, finance, business development, patent strategy, etc.
India's patent office rejected the company's patent application, arguing the drug was not a new medicine but an amended version of its earlier product.
The patent on a new drug starts running out the second the medicine is invented, and it can take many, many years to get these big clinical trials done.
On Wednesday, ViiV Healthcare a joint venture of GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and Shionogi announced it would grant a voluntary license to the Medicines Patent Pool to enable low-cost supply of a key pediatric HIV medicine in the 118 countries in which 98.7% of all HIV-positive children reside.
However, in a case first brought before the courts in 1996, Integra claims that Merck infringed its patent on peptides by using them more widely than merely to assist in securing approval for a new medicine.
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