If this is not your name, click here.
| | If this is not your name, click here. | | |
| | Contact Us | Order Now | Journals | Bookstore | Register a colleague | | |
| |  Abbott and Merck Researchers Receive Inventor of the Year Awards WASHINGTON -- April 15, 1997 -- Intellectual Property Owners (IPO), an association that serves companies and inventors who own patented inventions, is presenting the 24th annual National Inventor of the Year awards to nine scientists employed by Abbott Laboratories and Merck & Co., Inc. The inventors developed HIV protease inhibitors for the treatment of AIDS. When protease inhibitors were introduced, they were the first new class of drugs for treating AIDS in a decade. The new drugs were approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March 1996 in record time. Numerous studies have now demonstrated that protease inhibitors, in combination with The Abbott inventors are Dale J. Kempf, Daniel W. Norbeck, Hing L. Sham, and Chen Zhao. The Merck inventors are Joseph P. Vacca, Bruce D. Dorsey, James P. Guare, M. Katharine Holloway, and Randall W. Hungate. The winning inventors will receive plaques and a cash award from US Representative Howard Coble at a ceremony on Capital Hill. Coble is the Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, which has jurisdiction over patent legislation. The Abbott protease inhibitor, Norvir(R), and the Merck protease inhibitor, Crixivan(R), block the action of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) protease. HIV protease is an enzyme that is essential to the virus' ability to reproduce. Protease inhibitors have been found to provide outstanding anti-viral activity when used in combination with other protease inhibitors or other HIV drugs such as AZT and 3TC. Such combinations are sometimes call HIV "drug cocktails." The scientific and popular press have hailed protease inhibitors as one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the decade. The drugs are the result of an intensive, high-cost research effort by the pharmaceutical industry over a period of about ten years to develop new AIDS treatments. IPO also is recognizing four employees of Geron Corporation with its 1997 Distinguished Inventor Award. Geron Corporation is a small biotechnology company in Menlo Park, California. The invention provides improved technologies for the discovery of compounds that would block the action of telomerase, a controlling enzyme essential for cancer cell viability. The Geron inventors are Bryant Villeponteau, Junli Feng, Walter Funk, and William H. Andrews. The inventors received a patent in December 1996 on their invention, which is called "mammalian telomerase." Telomerase is an enzyme found in all cancer cells which replaces DNA lost from the tips, or "telomeres," of chromosomes whenever cells divide. The inventors have created new compounds that can stop telomerase from "rewinding" the biological clock of cancer cells, causing the cancer cells to die. Their invention is thought to represent a major milestone in the efforts to treat cancer. Past winners include some of the nation's best known inventors, including John Cocke, an inventor of Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) for IBM Corp., and Amar G. Bose, founder of Bose Corporation and inventor of loud speaker systems. Other earlier winners include James L. Fergason for his contributions to liquid crystal technology. Robert Jarvik for the Jarvik 7 artificial heart, and Paul Macready for a human-powered flying machine. The National Inventor of the Year award has been given each year since 1974. Nominations are received from industry, universities, government and independent inventors.
|
