The patent that Boston Scientific infringed on came about from research that Dr. Kevin Nelson and others did in the late 1990s at the University of Texas at Arlington.A small Dallas biotech company and the University of Texas took on big pharma and won.
The medical device giant infringed on the patent with its “Synergy” brand coronary stents, which are often used to treat narrowed coronary arteries. The company was the first to get FDA approval for a bioabsorbable polymer drug-eluting stent, which means it’s coated with a slow-release medication to help prevent blood clotting.
The patent came about from research that Dr. Kevin Nelson and others did in the late 1990s at UT Arlington, according to court filings. Nelson is now chief scientific officer at TissueGen, which he founded in July 2000 to develop next-generation drug delivery technologies., and is considered a spin-out of the joint program of biomedical engineering at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and UT Arlington.