Johnson & Johnson subsidiary settles lawsuit with Angiotech over stent patent
Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, of Vancouver, British Columbia, has reached an agreement with Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, Conor Medsystems of Menlo Park, Calif., to settle all outstanding patent litigation with respect to Conor's CoStar paclitaxel stent.
Angiotech, which specializes in pharmaceutical and drug-eluting medical devices, initiated legal proceedings with the European Patent Office (EPO) in February 2005 with its partner, Boston Scientific of Natick, Mass., which licenses Angiotech’s paclitaxel drug and polymer carrier as core components of its Taxus drug-eluting coronary stent.
Conor, a developer of drug-eluting stents for coronary artery disease, uses paclitaxel in its CoStar cobalt chromium drug-eluting coronary stent, which sparked the patent lawsuits.
In March, the EPO of Munich, Germany, ruled in favor of Angiotech.
"With this agreement now in place, Angiotech expects that the resources required to defend and enforce our intellectual property should decrease," said William Hunter, MD, president and CEO of Angiotech.
At the time of the settlement, there was ongoing litigation in three jurisdictions: the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Australia.
Angiotech, which specializes in pharmaceutical and drug-eluting medical devices, initiated legal proceedings with the European Patent Office (EPO) in February 2005 with its partner, Boston Scientific of Natick, Mass., which licenses Angiotech’s paclitaxel drug and polymer carrier as core components of its Taxus drug-eluting coronary stent.
Conor, a developer of drug-eluting stents for coronary artery disease, uses paclitaxel in its CoStar cobalt chromium drug-eluting coronary stent, which sparked the patent lawsuits.
In March, the EPO of Munich, Germany, ruled in favor of Angiotech.
"With this agreement now in place, Angiotech expects that the resources required to defend and enforce our intellectual property should decrease," said William Hunter, MD, president and CEO of Angiotech.
At the time of the settlement, there was ongoing litigation in three jurisdictions: the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Australia.