Industry news/gossip: Restasis inventor lashes out

This tidbit reaches way back into the past of Restasis, when a professor at the University of Georgia first put cyclosporin into a solution to treat canine dry eye 20+ years ago.... Now that Restasis is a blockbuster drug for Allergan, there is some unhappiness out there about how the university where it all started has shortchanged itself and the inventor of the longterm rewards.

UGA research royalty deal sours

...UGA officials expect royalty and licensing income to set yet another record next year, mainly because of a $10 million payment due from the global pharmaceutical company Allergan....

But the research foundation's payments from the pharmaceutical company would be millions more if inexperienced UGA officials had not caved in to tougher negotiators from the drug company, according to the former UGA faculty member whose invention provided the basis for Restasis....

More than two decades ago, [Renee] Kaswan thought of something no one had tried before - putting the immunosuppressant drug cyclosporin into a solution so that it could be applied to the eyes of dogs suffering from dry eye....

Kaswan's second idea was even bigger than Optimmune, the dog dry eye drug. Why not use basically the same solution to cure dry eye in humans?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the new drug for human use in 2002. And in 2003, Allergan began marketing and selling the drug, which it called Restasis....