Intellectual Property
Recognizing the importance of intellectual property in our industry, we have aggressively pursued patent protection in the U.S. and the significant markets around the world for all of our products, as well as for products under development.
Our portfolio of intellectual property developed, licensed or acquired to date includes over 250 issued U.S. patents and 230 pending U.S. patent applications, and over 620 issued non-U.S. patents and 560 pending non-U.S. patent applications, as of March 2008. In addition, strategic alliances with industry partners in clinical studies, production, marketing and distribution of our technology has resulted in not only out-licensing of the Company's patents and patent applications, but mutually beneficial cross-licensing and in-licensing of technology.
Angiotech was among the first companies to focus on paclitaxel as a therapeutic for indications other than cancer. As a result, we are developing an intellectual property portfolio that we believe should provide protection for a broad range of uses of paclitaxel.
In addition, we have issued patents and pending patent applications for the use of a wide variety of other drugs, drug carriers, and drug-loaded devices, which we believe will serve as a foundational platform for a wide variety of future applications.