Posts Tagged: "cialis"

What happens when lifestyle drugs like Viagra and Cialis lose patent protections?

Each year, millions of men rely on pharmaceuticals like Viagra and Cialis for their erectile dysfunction (ED), but they may not be the only ones facing dysfunctionalities. As the patents on these lucrative lifestyle drugs come to an end, price tags and bottom lines are expected to plummet… The lifestyle drug market is extremely lucrative. These medications can be used by all age groups worldwide and increased individual awareness of health and beauty has created a demand for physical fitness and improved performance of all our body parts. People are living longer, have higher disposable income, and the demand only grows more when a drug touts the high quality and safety of their formulations after it passes the stringent requirements for FDA approval… The real question, however, is whether U.S. patent law and policy will continue to give pharmaceutical companies the incentives necessary to innovate lifesaving medicines, or whether we will continue to see more and more blockbuster lifestyle drugs moving into the future.

Pfizer’s Erectile Dysfunction Claim for Viagra® Found Invalid

In the opinion, the BPAI agreed with the reexamination Examiner that any one of four (out of five) prior art references that contained descriptions of oral administration of the herb Yin Yang Huo (also known, perhaps not too surprisingly, as horny goat weed) are anticipatory prior art for claim 24. There were other rejections (double patenting rejections) that the Examiner set forth and that BPAI upheld. The patent claims cover the first commercially (wildly) successful male impotence drug Viagra®.