Patents and Partnerships
Intellectual Property
Under the exclusive license agreement with Washington University (St. Louis, MO), we have obtained intellectual property rights to their patent estate consisting of an extensive portfolio of patents and pending patent applications (approximately 25 patents and numerous patent applications) related to our animal health products under development. The term of the agreement is tied to the life of the last patent to expire. Patents in the estate begin to expire in 2014; the last to expire of the current patents will occur after 2020. In order to strengthen and lengthen our patent coverage, we have filed and continue to file patent applications to expand and extend the patent position of this technology.
Partnerships
Our cattle product candidates, BoviPure-LH™ and BoviPure-FSH™, were licensed in 2008 to Novartis Animal Health under a long-term world-wide development and marketing agreement and are currently advancing in the FDA development and approval process. We are currently advancing the stages of cGMP manufacturing and validation steps required to allow the start of pivotal FDA safety and efficacy studies. We expect that such development activity will continue to advance during 2010.
Our long-term goal is to methodically leverage this technology into numerous generations of products for potential application in multiple species. We are working to prioritize each potential worldwide market opportunity and value and the likelihood of successful distribution. We anticipate that we may be able to secure and execute additional worldwide license agreements covering products for other species of economic importance
