It will be interesting to see what their final patents look like. There appears to be some debate in the community regarding this new found rush to patent applications of historically used natural herbs and the like with bioactive molecules and pathways of action. For hundreds of years some portion of the human race has known of the therapeutic effects of certain nature substances, and now modern science runs in and grabs claims based on validation through the scientific process? Green tea is getting some attention now - supposedly you must drink at minimum 4 cups a day.
Not a heck of a lot out there.
patents.ibm.com
Some of Yeung, HW's work
patents.ibm.com
patents.ibm.com
And what do they do about this?
webgeneral.com
niam.com
herbsusa.com
Older, but informative, and I guess painful for some on this board.
1997 March, TreatmentUpdate 77 Vol 9 No 3 - AndroVir -- early results
by Sean R. Hosein
Background
Traditional Chinese medicine has recipes (mixtures of herbs) for treating various infections, so it should not be surprising
that extracts of some of these herbs can shut down production of HIV when tested in lab experiments. One of these herbs,
commonly called green chiretta (Andrographis paniculata), is being tested under the brand name AndroVir as a treatment for
HIV infection. Researchers are not certain exactly how the herb works but it appears to act differently than drugs such as
AZT or protease inhibitors.
Early results
In a nine week study on 16 HIV-infected subjects, AndroVir caused half of them to have:
a 31% "increase in CD4+ cell counts"
a 38% decrease in the amount of HIV in their blood.
The company testing the compound, Paracelsian, Inc., plans to sell AndroVir as a herbal supplement through the UK-based
company East West Herbs. A year's supply of AndroVir is expected to cost about $720 US. Using revenue from sales of
AndroVir, the company hopes to fund further clinical trials. Paracelsian is also testing another herbal extract for its anticancer
activity.
REFERENCES:
1. Chang RS and Yeung HW. Inhibition of growth of Human Immunodeficiency Virus in vitro by crude extracts of Chinese
medicinal herbs. Antiviral Research 1988;9:163-176.
2. Anonymous. Paracelsian plans AndroVir launch. SCRIP 1997;2208:23.
3. O'Grady L. Written communication (document on file).
So the question I have is, have the big boys neglected to uncover something here, or did they look closely and look away? There are carnivors out there, aren't there? Can PRLN actually walk away with a defensable patent, or are they just giving us investors something to hope for? Why wouldn't they have filed patents long ago? And if they did file pattens long before their Androvir plan shit the bed, these provisional patents would have surely ran out before Biomar turned this ship around. Some things just perplex me! |
