Gilead Sciences announced that the USPTO has upheld one of the four patents on its AIDS medicine Viread that has come under challenge.
The USPTO has not announced its ruling on the remaining three Viread patents under review, the company said.
The nonprofit Public Patent Foundation had challenged the Viread patents last year. The group said it submitted evidence that patent on Viread are obvious as per prior art.
Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate ( 1-(6-aminopurin-9-yl) propan-2-yloxymethylphosphonic acid ), belongs to a class of antiretroviral drugs known as nucleotide analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitors (nRTIs), which block reverse transcriptase, an enzyme crucial to viral production in HIV-infected people.
Tenofovir is also available in a fixed-dose combination with emtricitabine in a product with the brand name Truvada for once-a-day dosing. (Emtricitabine is marketed as a single-compound product called Emtriva, also by Gilead.) Atripla, a fixed-dose triple combination of tenofovir, emtricitabine and efavirenz, was approved by the FDA on 12 July 2006 and is now available, providing a single daily dose for the treatment of HIV.
The USPTO has not announced its ruling on the remaining three Viread patents under review, the company said.
The nonprofit Public Patent Foundation had challenged the Viread patents last year. The group said it submitted evidence that patent on Viread are obvious as per prior art.
Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate ( 1-(6-aminopurin-9-yl) propan-2-yloxymethylphosphonic acid ), belongs to a class of antiretroviral drugs known as nucleotide analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitors (nRTIs), which block reverse transcriptase, an enzyme crucial to viral production in HIV-infected people.
Tenofovir is also available in a fixed-dose combination with emtricitabine in a product with the brand name Truvada for once-a-day dosing. (Emtricitabine is marketed as a single-compound product called Emtriva, also by Gilead.) Atripla, a fixed-dose triple combination of tenofovir, emtricitabine and efavirenz, was approved by the FDA on 12 July 2006 and is now available, providing a single daily dose for the treatment of HIV.
