Conors Wins Lawsuit in UK

This pictures the mini pit resevoir on a Conors stent. This is over-all a rather unusual stent. The Conors stent has mini reservoirs (a first in stent design) in them, to which drugs either singularly or in multi-layer can be coated, so that the drugs can elute over fixed time intervals, hoping to even more reliably prevent restenosis, lowering restenosis rates. A very interesting concept. What we need now is medical evidence and clinical trial data.

Conor's DES is called Costar and this DES has paclitaxel as it's drug compound, coated onto mini-pits in the stent struts with biodegradable polymer (another first). Obviously Angiotech Pharmaceutical (owners of the paclitaxel patent, exclusively licenced to Boston Scientific, who has the paclitaxel bonded into all their taxus stent) sued Conors for infringement. The UK courts have decided that there was no patent infringement. Angiotech has filed an appeal (what else could they do) which may take years to come up for hearing.

A similar case is coming up in the Netherlands. Interestingly, the report also said that Conors is working with Novartis of Switzerland to licence one of their cancer drugs, for use in the next generation Conors DES. I wonder which drug? We are all waiting to see if the Conors new technology will bring better results. Two weeks ago, Conors had won CE mark approval for their Costar DES, meaning that it is safe for use in Europe.