University plans cox-2 court review
he University intends to ask the Supreme Court to review its patent infringement case involving the class of drugs called cox-2 inhibitors after a federal appeals court denied a request for an en banc hearing.
In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals denied the request for a hearing by a 75 vote. An en banc hearing, if granted, would have put the case before all 12 judges of the appeals court. In February, a three-judge panel of that court upheld a lower court ruling that the University's patent, issued in 2000, was invalid.
In 1992, Rochester filed an application to protect the work of a Medical Center team led by biochemist Donald Young that discovered the gene that contains the chemical instructions for producing the enzyme cox-2 and for pinpointing the enzyme's role in causing inflammation.
The discovery set off a worldwide race among pharmaceutical companies to identify drugs that would inhibit the action of the enzyme--and, in turn, reduce inflammation and pain without the side effects common in other pain relievers.
The University had filed an infringement lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which makes the popular cox-2 inhibitor Celebrex.
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