Synthélabo: analysis of patenting 1994 - 1997

Abstract

Synthélabo, the second largest pharmaceutical company in France and 40th in the world, has a small patent portfolio dominated by neurologicals, acting by various mechanisms, including GABAergics, monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors and benzodiazepine (BZD) receptor ligands. There are also projects targeting indications such as urinary incontinence, benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), thrombosis and nausea; mechanisms which feature in more than one category include serotonergics and α-adrenergics, the latter with input from a Spanish team. The Company appears recently to have begun filing PCT applications, giving the more important inventions protection in more than 40 territories, substantially more than when European applications were filed.