I am not picking per se here, but gee every time I turn around I keep hearing about one suit after another with appeals, awards, etc. all going back to “patent wars”, imageand with present economic conditions, who cares.  All I know is that consumers end up paying in the long run for all of this and the awards are insidious as well as the dollar amounts.  This is beginning to remind me of what we have in Washington with not being able to reach agreements.  Do we really need to tie up the courts with all of this and with the technology involved, all of this can go on for years. 

Boston Scientific already was ordered to pay short of 2 billion and yet we have another case that is going to be appealed.   There’s one more story here about a judge denying J and J a bid to revive a 5.5 billion dollar anti competition breach of contract lawsuit with Boston Scientific.  This is utterly ridiculous and the technology being disputed is highly technical.  What don't’ the 2 merge or do something else that’s more intelligent than this, like reach an agreement without years of court cases.  Is this the way of the future for financing research and development with stents? 

Who has the best patented stent?  I have conducted some interviews with another company, Cook Medical who also makes various types of stents and I don’t read all of this in the news about their products, but they are also privately owned and don’t have stockholders either so maybe there’s a different focus there.  Is there something to dropping investments to insure there’s enough money in the till to cover legal expenses?  I don’t know am just asking.  I can’t remember who it was but some one also made a point about seeing “stent” advertising in an airport, again do we need to advertise and spend a ton of money there too?   Here’s a couple of projects I have listed on the blog here for a few examples. 

Johnson and Johnson Drops Investment for MRSA Drug Development After Failing to Meet European CE Mark & FDA Approvals

Johnson and Johnson Pulls GeneSearch Breast Cancer Diagnosis Test – Trials Ended
Johnson and Johnson Cancels Contract with Palomar – Unfavorable Economic Conditions Stated For A Massive Product Launch

I don’t know about you, but with the disruptive nature of healthcare today and 55% of the hospitals in the US operating in the red, this certainly is a waste of money for those who can’t work things out and only serves to drive up the cost that hospitals have to pay for stentsMost of the doctors and hospitals could care less too, they just want a product that will function as it should and have it available to provide care and save lives.  It would be nice to see manufacturers in essence share the same objective, but legal cases and all the money bounced back and forth along with huge amounts of money spent is not getting us to goal one any faster.  As I wrote in another post “Legal patent battles are no longer sexy”.  Did anyone happen to notice a story here about a hospital cutting off their residency program due to lack of money? 

San Joaquin General Hospital Bakersfield, CA Ending Residency Program Residency Program and More to Cut Costs

These “legally patented” stents are so expensive for hospitals to stock and have available, that many hospitals stock them on “consignment” in other words they are on the shelf and the hospital does not pay until it is implanted.  Take a clue here folks and think about how the ridiculous court battles continue to run this expense right up the flagpole.  

Anyway I read about billions of dollars at stake and millions spent, and yet an idea to save lives and check for recalls goes nowhere, so is the interest in making money or is there any interest with involving patient safety here too?    A program like this certainly could have made the recent Tylenol recall a little easier, more efficient and less expensive, but it appears items as such take their place in line maybe behind court cases.  I don’t by any chance think I am alone in this observation as you would have to be living under a rock not to notice if you read the news today about the millions spent in court room battles.  BD  

Tags for Use in Healthcare – Medical Stents, Medications - One Scan Away From Safety Information in Real Time

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) appealed a federal judge's ruling that four of its Cordis Corp. subsidiary's drug-eluting stent patents are invalid, the latest salvo in its long-running infringement battle with Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE:BSX).

The patents in question are at the heart of complicated legal wrangling involving the Natick, Mass.-based medical device giant, its New Brunswick, N.J.-based rival and its competitor/partner Abbott (NYSE:ABT). The dispute centers around Boston Scientific's Promus stent, a private-label version of Abbott's Xience V stent, and the Cordis Cypher.

Johnson & Johnson appeals patent ruling | MassDevice - Medical Device Industry News

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