Copycat rights

Two firms that make generic drugs have received a windfall courtesy of a US district court. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries in Israel and Ranbaxy Laboratories in India were granted exclusive sales rights for six months to generic versions of Zocor (simvastatin). Made by Merck, Zocor is the world's second-largest cholesterol drug in terms of sales — and it comes off patent next month. The court in the District of Columbia ruled that that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acted unlawfully when it denied the two firms six months of exclusivity on the drug. The FDA may appeal.

Industrial slowdown

Industrial support for research at US universities dropped for the third successive year in 2004, falling by almost 3% to $2.1 billion, according to the National Science Foundation. For every $20 spent by academics in science and engineering that year, industry provided $1. The drop is a result of industry becoming “much more short-term and development-oriented” after the US economy dipped in 2001, says Kei Koizumi, an analyst at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Lilly thinks small

A division of drugmaker Eli Lilly has signed a collaborative agreement with Altair Nanotechnologies, a Nevada-based company that supplies ceramic nanomaterials and technologies. In exchange for undisclosed milestone and royalty payments, Indiana-based Elanco Animal Health will get exclusive rights to use Altair products to develop and deliver animal drugs. Altair's materials have already been used to develop RenaZorb, a drug for kidney dialysis patients, which it licensed to Spectrum Pharmaceuticals in January.

Right to try

A US patients' rights group is making progress in its fight to win dying patients the right to try drugs still under development. The Abigail Alliance, which lobbies for patients with terminal diseases, sued the Food and Drug Administration in 2003, claiming that the terminally ill have the right to use experimental drugs that have passed initial human-safety trials. A lower court threw out the case in 2004, but a higher court last week reinstated it.