ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,565,497, issued on March 3, was assigned to Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. (Little Falls, N.J.).

"Sulfone derivatives" was invented by Andrew Simon Bell (Dundee, Great Britain), Jeremy Besnard (Dundee, Great Britain), Anthony Richard Bradley (Dundee, Great Britain), Luke Green (Basel, Switzerland), Wolfgang Haap (Loerrach, Germany), Buelent Kocer (Maulburg, Germany), Andreas Kuglstatter (Loerrach, Germany), Xavier Lucas (Basel, Switzerland), Patrizio Mattei (Riehen, Switzerland), Dmitry Mazunin (Grenzach-Wyhlen, Germany), Claus Riemer (Freiburg, Germany) and Willem Paul Van Hoorn (Dundee, Great Britain).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present ...