BigK,
<<The Alibra patent was filed almost 4 years ago.>>
Here are links to the same site but with descriptions of patents.
Yesterdays patent filed as you say in June 1995.
164.195.100.11
But this patent seems to be made irrelevant by the later patent, filed in October 1997 and granted in June 1998, which defines the therapy in more detailed terms,
164.195.100.11
Both patent descriptions are a mine of information about what Vivus has done and considered on the research front, a snippett from the 1998 patent:
<<Unit dosages for PGE.sub.1, are in the range of about 10 to 2000 .mu.g, about 50 to 500 .mu.g being preferred, the unit dosages of papaverine are in the range of about 1-50 mg, and the unit dosages of phentolamine are in the range of about 1-10 mg, and the unit dose of prazosin, doxazosin and terazosin are in the range of about 50-2000 .mu.g per dose with 100 to 1000 .mu.g being preferred. It has been observed that combinations of two or more drugs such as PGE.sub.1, ie, alprostadil, misoprostol or enprostil with .alpha.-blockers, ie, prazosin, doxazosin or terazosin tend to potentiate the erectile effect thereby permitting efficacy to be obtained at lower doses of both drugs.>>
The patent granted yesterday clearly reflects research in the very early stages but is interesting because it gives details on a lot of drug combinations not pursued, and in fact this patent his relatively little on prazosin.
Vivus say in the beginning of yesterday's press release that,
"This patent provides VIVUS with broad patent protection for the commercialization of ALIBRA(tm)"
and then go on simply to describe Alibra without reference to the patent.
So while this old patent announced yesterday may be important in providing some kind of broad protection it is clear to me that it was used more an excuse to make a press release about Alibra.
As someone mentioned yesterday we are seeing a new strategy.
DaiS |
