International Patent Reviews Releases Study on Sun Pharmaceuticals' LEVULAN® KERASTICK® patent

DALLAS, July 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, International Patent Reviews, LLC (IPR) released a study on Sun Pharmaceuticals' U.S. Patent No. 10,357,567 directed to technology around their LEVULAN® KERASTICK®. A copy of the study can be found at IPR's website.

IPR is focused on identifying patents filed by pharmaceutical companies that do not represent novel inventions suitable for protection. Dr. R. L. Smith of IPR stated that "the patent system was designed to be entrusted to authentic inventors and legitimate drug research and development organizations. However, many pharmaceutical filings are purposefully structured to artificially extend the reach of protection afforded by our patent system." Dr. Smith went on to say that "this practice has the effect of raising the costs of drugs on those that need them."

IPR has developed a comprehensive and multifaceted process for identifying pharmaceutical patent filings that have taken advantage of the patent system.  Once a patent has been identified, IPR makes every effort to expose it as neither unique nor useful. Dr. Smith said, "While our team generates some of the best and most comprehensive studies available in the industry, our work can only improve with further public scrutiny and crowdsourcing, and we hope that the information can be used for defeating these weak patents and to help control the runaway costs of branded pharmaceuticals."

The first patent for LEVULAN® KERASTICK® was issued in January of 1992. The '567 patent has an expected expiration date reaching into January of 2038. This is a span of over 46 years from the time of issuance of the first patent to the expiration of the latest. Dr. Smith commented that "the '567 seems to be an inequitable extension of valid patent rights granted by the U.S. government. It looks as if the protection has been speciously extended by a process we refer to as 'ever-greening'. That is, making small, rather insignificant changes to the process in order to gain a new patent with a longer time for exclusivity."

IPR hopes that interested parties, competitive pharmaceutical companies, and other stake holders will use this freely available information to help bring down the cost of this drug for patients, hospitals, and caregivers.

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SOURCE International Patent Reviews, LLC