Bruce, it seems that there is a court problem cooking between HVSF and Vivus.
Vivus is the only company with a urethral delivery method and with a sound patent. If this patent could be challenged, definitely more complex than the "oral method", anyone could challenge Zona's patent.
I think this is a very interesting development, Vivus got the patent, they already had a fight on it before and they end up in compensating the other part, but they did prevailed.
Also, of interest was the Nxtr challenge to Lipo, regarding lyophilized liposomes, and Lipo won $2 millions, oh they also won a small royalty (less than 1% is the rumor)and Lipo expended (waste?) $10,000,000 in the fight.
Of course, with Schering behind, they probably will have muscle for a better fight.
But, as I said before, Barr Labs fights complex patents and go succesfully ahead with generics (recent Barr victories over AZT/GlaxoWellcome, coumadin/DupontMerck and the most recent Premarin/Amer Home Products) showed how difficult is to fight for the patent holders. |
