Biotech and Medtech - Inventions & Patents

Why did a technology that was hailed as the “Breakthrough of the Year” in 2002 by the journal Science did not succeed commercially, at least not yet?  There was high hope that RNAi maybe the next class of miracle drug.  So much so that in February 2004, MIT’s Technology Review listed it as one of the “10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change Your World”.  It was believed that modern ailments such as heart disease, hepatitis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and AIDS that are triggered by “errant genes”, could be arrested or cured by turning off the genes by using RNAi.  

bmesource.org 

If you are looking for medtech information, look no further here it is.  Provided by bmesource.org, this is the most comprehensive, high-quality, reliable guide to find information spanning from basic clinical information to technical references such as engineering references and regulatory information. Also included are many useful guides to market information and legal issues.  It is an incredible collection of useful links, 13,600 in all provided by over a hundred associates and edited by staff from 77 universities!  This is a must-have eresource for the biomedical design community.

In 1989, Genentech was issued the first ‘Cabilly’ patent (named after the inventor Shmuel Cabilly and others). The Cabilly patent (US 4,816,567) claims methods for making monoclonal antibodies using recombinant DNA technology. In the same year Celltech was issued a similar ‘Boss’ patent (named after the inventor Michael Boss and others). The Cabilly patent claims also included the claims in the Boss patent ( US 4,816,397). As a result the two companies entered into a lengthly interference dispute that was resolved in 2001.