title: Drug repurposing and the prior art patents of competitors.
abstract: Drug repurposing (i.e., finding novel indications for established substances) has received increasing attention in industry recently. One challenge of repositioned drugs is obtaining effective patent protection, especially if the 'novel' indications have already been claimed by competitors within the same drug class. Here, I report the case of patents relating to phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors. Patentees of later-filed patents on novel indications (even when they could not observe prior patenting of their direct competitors) filed patents for which patent examiners did not see the prior-filed patents of the competitors as relevant prior art, whereas these follower patent applications often failed because of other reasons.
authors.affiliation: CFH Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Loehrstrasse 16, 04105 Leipzig, Germany; Ilmenau University of Technology, PATON - Landespatentzentrum Thueringen, PF 100 565, 98684 Ilmenau, Germany. Electronic address: cs@sternitzke.com.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sternitzke
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy; D004345:Drug Industry; D058492:Drug Repositioning; D007172:Erectile Dysfunction / Q000188:drug therapy; D006801:Humans; D006976:Hypertension, Pulmonary / Q000188:drug therapy; D008297:Male; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy; D010330:Patents as Topic; D058986:Phosphodiesterase 5 Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D011470:Prostatic Hyperplasia / Q000188:drug therapy; D001745:Urinary Bladder Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy
chemical_list: D058986:Phosphodiesterase 5 Inhibitors