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Biotech / Medical : Biotech Valuation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Biomaven who wrote (19386)	3/21/2006 3:53:17 PM
From: tom pope	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 52153

Given the Justices' clear reluctance to get anywhere near the broader issues, one wonders why they decided to take it on in the first place?

To: Biomaven who wrote (19386)	3/21/2006 3:58:27 PM
From: Biomaven	Respond to of 52153

I haven't been following this case much, but I can at least try to think about if from first principles. What appears to be at issue here is a biomarker (homocysteine level) for a disease (heart disease), together with a method for reducing the biomarker (by giving the appropriate B vitamins). (Too bad it was very recently shown this doesn't actually seem to help with the heart disease, making this patent perhaps moot in practical terms). OK, so what can actually be patented? I could see a use patent (new use for some B vitamins) that would be mighty hard to enforce, but would make sense if this was actually a drug they were talking about. How about the correlation of the biomarker with the disease? Not really clear if that's a patentable invention, although it's potentially useful information that we want to encourage scientists to research. But potentially the use of the correlation to diagnose the disease is different - that might well be patentable. Similarly the use of the biomarker in monitoring the disease is something that might be patentable. This particular case is awkward. Doctors recognize homocysteine as a risk factor, so they measure it. They aren't measuring it to particularly figure out whether the patient is vitamin deficient, although they might suggest vitamins to treat the hyperhomocysteinuria. Personally I don't think any patent that someone could violate by thinking should be a valid patent. Sorry if this seems rambling - partly it's hard and partly I don't know all the details of the case so I'm just throwing out random thoughts. Peter