CID Carbostent & Implantable Devices (a former Sorin Group business unit) has announced that it has successfully defended European Patent 1277449 against an opposition filed by Conor Medsystem, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, on proprietary drug-eluting stent technology.
Both companies, CID and Conor, utilise stent platforms for coronary arteries that release drug from reservoirs located on the stent surface.
In oral proceedings on 10 March 2009, the opposition division of the European Patent Office in Munich held patent claims, presented before the European Patent Office, to be fully valid and maintained.
CID was the first company in the world to market a polymer-free drug-eluting stent. This know-how, developed totally in-house, offers physicians the unique advantages brought by the combination of Carbofilm, CID’s highly biocompatible coating proven to significantly reduce the risk of thrombotic events, and a proprietary drug release system based on the use of reservoirs on the stent’s outer surface to ensure a targeted drug release towards the vessel wall.
“This result, obtained after highly contested opposition proceedings, confirms the value of CID’s intellectual property. CID is fully entitled to exploit all the unique features of its technology”, says Franco Vallana, CEO of CID, one of the inventors of the reservoir technology. “CID’s drug-release platform avoids the use of polymer to carry the drug thus eliminating the shortcomings often associated with polymers; moreover the reservoirs placed on the stent’s outer surface ensure targeted drug release towards the vessel wall,” he added. “These key elements allow for a limited period of dual antiplatelet therapy duration, thus reducing the life-threatening bleeding risks a forced prolonged dual antiplatelet therapy may induce in some patients,” J Koolen, Catharina Hospital, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, pointed out.
