Background
Beginning in 1983, a team at Glaxo Wellcome began researching an anti-AIDS drug. The team hoped to develop a chain terminator to halt HIV in the reverse-transcription stage of its HIV life cycle. Drugs selected on the basis of their chemical structure were screened starting in 1984.
One of the drugs screened at that time is what is now known as AZT. This drug was originally synthesized by cancer researchers in 1964, in a project that was eventually abandoned. Since that time, Glaxo Wellcome had been developing AZT as an anti-bacterial.
In vitro testing on mouse cells revealed that AZT was potentially effective against AIDS. Glaxo Wellcome was not equipped to do testing of the drug on human cell lines, so it contracted with the National Institutes of Health for this work. In February 1985, the NIH reported the positive results of their screening to Glaxo Wellcome, and, on March 16, 1985, Glaxo Wellcome filed a patent application for a new use of AZT in the United Kingdom.
The validity of this patent was brought into question by the appellant generic drug manufacturers.
Read more about this topic: Apotex Inc. V. Wellcome Foundation Ltd.
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