Merck Wins Patent Extension Case

SeekingAlpha:

Aaron F. Barkoff submits:  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held today (pdf file) that a patent term extension under 35 USC 156 may be applied to a patent subject to a terminal disclaimer under 35 USC 253, handing a victory to Merck (MRK) in its battle with Hi-Tech Pharmacal (HITK) over generic Trusopt (dorzolamide HCl opthalmic solution).

R&D Crisis

And a paper on root causes:

In the past decade the pharma industry has experienced an innovation gap crisis characterized by relatively flat growth rate in new drug approval rates and a steady growth of over 2.5X in cost. Big pharma has tried to tackle the innovation gap with a series of strategic solutions: throwing money at internal R&D, horizontal consolidation, and increased in-licensing from the biotech sector, all with limited success. In our whitepaper, we survey the literature to pinpoint the fundamental root causes of the innovation gap and explore some of the emerging business models and solutions on the horizon and assess their opportunities and challenges in addressing the R&D crisis.