Dear colleagues,
According to the Merck Index a German patent was given in 1986 to
the Wellcome Foundation (3,608,606) and a US patent in 1988 to
Burroughs Wellcome (4,724,232). Though the preparation of the
compound dates back to 1964 (!) - Horwitz et al. J Org Chem
29:2076 in the NCI, it apparently was not patented at that time. So
there is still a long time to go....
Best wishes.
Dr.L.Offerhaus
Koedijklaan 1a, NL-1406KW Bussum, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-35-6923288. Fax: +31-35-6923290
E-mail: LO@EURONET.NL CompuServe: 71530,15
[AZT's European patent seems to run indeed till March 2006.
This AZT story poses, however a question: if AZT was already described and
written up in publications in 1964, why did the patent office in 1986 grant
a patent? The invention was not new. Could someone have objected in 1986?
And why did the 20 years period only start in 1986 and not in 1964? In the
latter case, we could all have access to cheaper generic AZT...
I recall that this week a Canadian University was compensated with some
USD 300m because a drug company had not respected its original patents. Any
patent specialist among E-druggers to shed some light on these issues? WB]
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