Patenting activity in drugs for renal disease, January 2002 - June 2004

Abstract

Using the Thomson Current Drugs IDdb3 subscription database and the public ESPACENET database maintained by the European Patent Office, intellectual property documents published between January 2002 and June 2004 have been screened for documents with a high degree of relevance to renal therapy. The scope of the search was limited to international disclosures under the Patent Convention Treaty; US patents or published applications and European patents and published applications. A total of 71 documents (56 from corporate applicants, 15 from academic institutions, governments or individual inventors; priority data range, January 2000 – June 2003) were identified, reviewed and put into context with the peer-reviewed literature wherever this seemed appropriate. The analysis indicates that innovation in the major fields of unmet need in kidney therapy (chronic or acute renal failure and renal cancer) proceeds on a broad front, although the potential for patient benefit that is revealed remained incremental.

• acute renal failure
• diabetic nephropathy
• dialysis
• glomerulonephritis
• kidney stones
• polycystic kidney disease
• renal cell carcinoma
• transplant rejection