Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Chinese Starch Medicals Perclot Patent Claims Denied - Impact for Cryolife predicted

Recently denied claims for China based Perclot manufacturer Starch Medical have seen Starch re-file a dramatically reduced set of claims revised patent application published May 16, 2013 (see HERE). 
The original 2009 filing which includes "Inventors" Ji Xin (James Ji), previously Chinese Distributor of Medafor's Arista, has now dropped Jianping Chen (Jane Chen) as an "Inventor".



 Of more critical importance the patent has now shrunk in respect of claims made. Currently claims 1-53 have now been cancelled and it seems likely this patent is less than secure.



The EU search indicates denial regarding incorrect claims and scope of the claims regarding novelty, and inventive steps. Comments such as "the skilled person knows....this method does not support an inventive step" amongst others is available in the embedded document below.




In the meantime it will be interesting to see the reaction from Cryolife Shareholders who, having been subjected to the Medafor - Cryolife debacle, may now have serious due diligence queries of executives. The millions spent already on the CRY-Starch marriage may be a concern, but continued investments highlighted in the last quarterly report by executives such as Ashley Lee who announced Q1 2013 the intention of (after initial denial of the Perclot IDE) re-filing the IDE with the FDA in May. Ashley also stated further investment in Perclot with "a 320 patient study, randomized 1:1 with a 30-day follow up over across several medical specialties". CEO Steve Anderson commented when questioned about Perclot manufacturing "I think we’ve already spent the money that we’re going to spend to build out our manufacturing facility that frankly is up and ready to go".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

and I quote...."If we sell PerClot in the U.S., we will likely be sued for patent infringement, which will be expensive, and if we lose, we may be prohibited from selling PerClot or may have to pay substantial royalties or damages when we sell PerClot, after receiving the FDA’s response to our application. We may not be successful in obtaining regulatory approval to distribute PerClot in the U.S. when expected, if at all."