Much of the value of large pharmaceutical company equities has been founded
on the brand franchises that have been built on their intellectual property arising
from drug discovery.

The industry is challenged today with decreasing returns on that franchise
investment in R&D because of the expiration of patents. Companies increasingly
are forced to spend most of the 20 years of their patent exclusivity in the R&D
and regulatory compliance phases of development. In 1993, the world's top
100 prescription drugs enjoyed an average of seven years of patent protection.
By 2003, those top 100 products will have a value of $150 billion in sales but will
enjoy patent protection (chart) averaging just three years.

Although some pharmaceutical companies look to their pipelines to replace their
expiring patent-based products with new molecules, business development
executives from big pharmaceutical companies are increasingly pursuing
"life-cycle management" strategies for their existing franchise products.
"Life-cycle management" attempts to extend the profitable life or franchise
of currently marketed brands by reformulating them into new dosage forms,
validating their utility in new indications, formulating them with new technology
or all three combined.

TTI's TDS® holds the potential for providing more distinctive "life-cycle
management" advantages to companies with expiring-patent drugs than simply
converting their oral drugs to transdermal delivery. TDS®-enhanced formulations may: