During the past few weeks the ups and downs of patent publishing have provided us with few good examples of drug repurposing claims, but the three that we are presenting here are quite remarkable. Who would have thought that losartan, one of the popular AT-II receptor antagonists that had been exposed to a cancer scare a brief while ago, could actually assist cancer therapy? That clozapine and ola...

Again, clever inventors have proven ingenious and busy in filing international patent applications that claim new (and sometimes surprising) uses for abandoned, marketed, or in-development drugs - and again H.M. Pharma Consultancy has selected five examples (published between May 10 and May 24, 2012) for brief discussions: tarenflubil for multiple sclerosis; lisuride and tergolide for fibrosis; al...

H.M. Pharma Consultancy would like to alert you to the availability of a new peer-review paper to which the entire core team has contributed:Mucke HAM*, Mucke P & Mucke E.Pharmacological therapies for cataract and refractive errors: landscaping niches of ocular drug patenting.Pharm. Pat. Analyst (2012) 1(2), 165–175 [Abstractand free PDF downloads]You might also want to visit the Pharmaceutica...

Today's discussed patent applications have a clear focus on neurology: Mesna, an extremely small and simple molecule used as a detoxicant, could lessen lumbar pain after failed or partially successful back surgery; dimiracetam, which the Italian arm of SmithKline Beecham had abandoned as an Alzheimer drug candidate, might be useful to prevent the "hand and foot" neuropathy syndrome caused by cance...

Patents have gained bad publicity once again, mainly in the context of high-tech companies employing them to keep each other's mobile computing innovations off the market as long as possible, or just to force cross-licensing deals. The press seems to take a natural delight in reporting on these infringement lawsuits, counter-suits, and whatnots. The background to these struggles -- the material im...

Late March and early April have not exactly presented us with an abundance of patent applications clearly related to drug repurposing... but the last two rounds, on April 12 and 19, have yielded four: an antiepileptic (valproic acid) that lets your nails grow; a rosacea treatment combining a glaucoma drug and a nasal decongestant; an erectile impotence drug (Bayer's vardenafil) for motor neuron di...

Modafinil,racemic (diphenylmethyl)sulfinyl-2 acetamideFor those who are following the Provigil story, here is an itemized history of this non-amphetamine CNS stimulant drug. We present this as an exemplary case study assembled from our drug tracking database, demonstrating how corporations, strategies, patents, markets and legal proceedings mesh over time as an active ingredient is born and ages t...

A variety of international patent applications have crossed our desks during the past three weeks, and here we present four examples: bupropion for SSRI-induced sexual female dysfunction; 11beta-HSD1 inhibitors for neuropathy; N-acetylcysteine for anxiety disorders; and a successful concerted repurposing effort to identify approved drugs that could be used to treat hookworm infection. - If you wan...

Catch Your Breath, Take It BitterThe chronic constrictive airway diseases - asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) - together affect 300 million individuals worldwide. Bronchodilators (corticosteroids, long-acting beta2 agonists and muscarinic antagonists, adenosine agonists, phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitors), mostly administered as inhaled drugs in fixed combinations, are the obvio...

Two interesting pieces either written by H.M. Pharma Consultancy or citing it have become publicly available during the past two weeks. First, the launch issue of Pharmaceutical Patent Analyst, the new journal from the Future Science Group, is already online and with it the first issue of our Patent Highlights (see here), which will be published in every bimonthly issue until at least January 2013...