Bristol Myers was the original manufacturer of Paclitaxel, however now there are multiple generic manufacturers.
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The drug is generically known as paclitaxel and is used primarily to treat ovarian and breast cancers.
But even if Cook's paclitaxel-coated stents prove medically effective, the plan may not save the day for Guidant.
Part of a family known as taxanes, paclitaxel is blunt chemotherapy that kills healthy cells alongside tumorous ones.
But another generic drugmaker, Bedford Labs , came out of nowhere with its own announcement to make paclitaxel.
Paclitaxel is "neither patented nor patentable, " a Bristol official assured Congress in 1991.
Boston Scientific believes allowing Guidant to sell the paclitaxel-coated stent violates this agreement.
Under this agreement, Boston Scientific and Cook were granted co-exclusive rights to use the drug paclitaxel to coat coronary stents.
But the paclitaxel triggered an extreme, nearly overwhelming allergic response, so he switched her to a regimen of carboplatin plus gemcitabine.
But, on average, those who were taking cisplatin and paclitaxel survived for 9.8 months, compared to 8.5 months in those taking carboplatin.
The injunction issued yesterday prohibits any performance under the agreements between Cook and Guidant relating to the development and distribution of paclitaxel drug-coated stents.
Hauser, developing a reputation for chemical extraction, would supply the paclitaxel.
But Taxol, known chemically as paclitaxel, is no wonder drug.
Along the way, for tax and supply diversification reasons, Bristol developed its own operation in Ireland to manufacture paclitaxel and then fired Hauser as a supplier.
Researchers at the National Cancer Institute first discovered paclitaxel's promise in 1963, but it never inspired much enthusiasm among drug companies because of a looming supply problem.
On the supergeneric front, Ivax is currently developing the oral form of paclitaxel, the generic form of one of the largest selling cancer drugs, Taxol, which is administered intravenously.
This summer, hopes were high for the company because it was selling generic versions of paclitaxel, the powerful cancer-fighting drug that Bristol-Myers Squibb (nyse: BMY - news - people) sells under the brand name Taxol.
Dr Rafael Rosell from the Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol in Barcelona, Spain, who led the research, said the findings suggested cisplatin-based chemotherapy should be the first treatment option, although paclitaxel and carboplatin was still a viable alternative.
In 1997, Boston Scientific signed an agreement with Cook and Angiotech Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: ANPI - news - people ), under which Cook and Boston Scientific were granted co-exclusive rights to use paclitaxel to coat coronary stents.
In 1997, Angiotech Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: ANPI - news - people ) granted Cook and Boston Scientific (nyse: BSX - news - people ) co-exclusive rights to use the drug paclitaxel to coat coronary stents.
The drug is Taxol, Bristol's brand name for paclitaxel, a trace compound found in the bark of the Pacific yew tree in the northwestern U.S. During the 1970s researchers for the U.S. government's National Cancer Institute discovered that paclitaxel stops the growth of some cancerous tumors.
Paclitaxel comes from the Pacific yew, a small, slow-growing fir found in small pockets in the Pacific Northwest. (Docetaxel comes from the European yew.) Devising a synthetic version is difficult because the chemical is exceedingly complex, marked by concentric rings of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen.
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