Commission issues invention award for new medicines

Published: 23-Apr-2007

The European Commission has presented Inventors of the Year 2007 awards to two pharmaceutical research teams for developing new and successful medicines with a global impact.


The European Commission has presented Inventors of the Year 2007 awards to two pharmaceutical research teams for developing new and successful medicines with a global impact.

Professor Marc Feldmann, of the UK's Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Imperial College, London, received a lifetime achievement award for identifying the role of cytokines in the treatment of autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and finding a treatment, that 'has helped millions of people all over the world'.

Meanwhile, Dr Joseph P. Vacca and his team at Merck Research Laboratories, West Point, Pennsylvania, US, won a non-European countries award for inventing Crixivan, the protease inhibitor that has 'revolutionised HIV treatment worldwide', said the Commission.

This was the second round of these awards made jointly by the Commission and the European Patent Office in Munich, Germany.

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