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Could patents interfere with the development of a cardiovascular polypill?

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of Translational Medicine, August 2016
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (82nd percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (91st percentile)

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1 news outlet
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Title
Could patents interfere with the development of a cardiovascular polypill?
Published in
Journal of Translational Medicine, August 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12967-016-0997-3
Pubmed ID
Authors

Reed F. Beall, Jon-David R. Schwalm, Mark D. Huffman, Tara McCready, Salim Yusuf, Amir Attaran

Abstract

The Wellcome Trust, the World Health Organization, and cardiologists have advocated for the idea of a "polypill" containing multiple cardiovascular drugs to be co-formulated into a single pill for over a decade. Some cardiologists have asserted that the drugs commonly considered for inclusion into such a polypill are older and therefore free of patent protection. We tested this assertion. This project was requested by the World Heart Federation (WHF). Two cardiologists from the WHF provided a list of 48 cardiovascular drugs for evaluation. We designated the United States and Canada as the base jurisdictions for this patent study. We linked patent data from these countries' national medicine patent registers to patent information in over 96 other countries using Derwent and INPADOC via Thomson Innovation. We expanded our study beyond the aforementioned data linkage through a systematic search of the World Intellectual Property Organization's PatentScope, which was based primarily upon the drugs' active ingredient names. In the United States and Canada, eight of the drugs were only available in the patent-protected, brand name formulation in one or both countries. Another 21 drugs had relevant patents, but generic equivalents were nevertheless available. Only 19 drugs (40 %) appeared entirely post-patent. Broadening the co-formulation searches globally, the overwhelming majority of drugs (40/48) were mentioned in patent applications for cardiovascular drug combinations. The assertion that most of these cardiovascular drugs are post-patent is accurate, but only in the sense that many of the original patents on these active ingredients have expired and that generic alternatives are usually available. The landscape of patents covering novel (co-) formulations is far more complex, however. Most research and development for cardiovascular combination medicines are likely to be undertaken by companies whose original patents on the active ingredient will soon expire or have recently expired. Cardiologists looking to accelerate polypill development may consider approaching such companies to partner.

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X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 39 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 39 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 8 21%
Student > Bachelor 5 13%
Researcher 5 13%
Student > Doctoral Student 4 10%
Unspecified 3 8%
Other 6 15%
Unknown 8 21%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 11 28%
Nursing and Health Professions 4 10%
Unspecified 3 8%
Business, Management and Accounting 3 8%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 3 8%
Other 6 15%
Unknown 9 23%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 10. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 02 May 2022.
All research outputs
#3,209,478
of 22,883,326 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Translational Medicine
#525
of 4,004 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#58,409
of 343,111 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Translational Medicine
#7
of 83 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,883,326 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 85th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,004 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 343,111 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 82% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 83 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.