Molecular diagnostic patents January to September 1999: part 2 - infection targets

Abstract

An analysis of molecular diagnostic patents published in the first nine months of 1999 shows that roughly two-thirds of documents from the top three companies (Innogenetics, Abbott Laboratories and Akzo Nobel) are focused on immunoassay technologies. However, this focus is shifting toward nucleic acid based approaches. Interestingly, companies with a strong emphasis on nucleic acid based approaches also own their own proprietary detection techniques, threatening Roche’s polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as the dominant technology. There is some evidence that the mainstream pharmaceutical companies are becoming active in nucleic acid-based technologies for infection targets, using these techniques to develop new drugs.

• company
• gene probe
• immunoassay
• infection
• nucleic acid amplification
• patent
• profile