Immunitor Awarded the Key U.S. Patent Related to Oral Vaccine Technology Platform
College Park, MD (MMD Newswire) November 26, 2010 -- Immunitor USA Inc., the industry leader in tableted oral vaccines and immunotherapies, has been issued a key patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
The patent (US 7,838,006 "Viral vaccine composition, process and methods of use") contains claims covering the composition of matter for Immunitor's lead product, V5. The patent also covers the process of making and use of the matter for treating and preventing the broad range of infectious diseases.
Immunitor was previously awarded a U.S. patent covering another lead compound specifically designed for treatment of AIDS (US 7,384,637).
According to Vichai Jirathitikal, the principal inventor on these two patents, "The USPTO has validated the novelty and utility of Immunitor's technology and its use in the treatment and prophylaxis of a range of most diverse diseases and conditions."
The co-inventor, Aldar Bourinbaiar, Immunitor's CEO, added: "With the issuance of these two patents, our lead programs are further protected, significantly enhancing their commercial value to our future partner - publicly traded, Vancouver-based Immune Network Ltd company (Pink: IMMFF)" (http://www.immunenetwork.com/).
During the past three years Immunitor completed two phase II clinical trials using V5 for treatment of chronic hepatitis B and C. This year Immunitor seized upon unexpected clinical outcome, which revealed the intriguing potential of V5 in curing TB in almost 95% of patients within one month. The results of the first trial in patients with TB who were co-infected with hepatitis C virus and HIV were published in October issue of Journal of Vaccines and Vaccination (http://www.omicsonline.org/2157-7560/2157-7560-1-103.php).
The enrollment for two additional phase 2b placebo-controlled trials involving 120 patients has been just completed in Ukraine and results are anticipated in early 2011. These two trials will investigate whether difficult-to-treat forms of TB such as relapsed TB, re-treated or failure TB, and drug-resistant TB including MDR- and XDR-TB can be treated at the same efficacy rate and as fast as drug-sensitive TB. So far, the trials provided strong evidence of an excellent safety profile and provided insights into their unparalleled efficacy that will guide Immunitor in the design of follow-on studies, which are now being arranged in South Africa, Pakistan, India and China.
Over the course of the company's development, Immunitor has achieved a broad and deep intellectual-property position in the orally delivered immunotherapeutics area. The company's patent portfolio now includes more than eight pending patents (including two international), with at least two dozen scientific publications in the peer-reviewed medical literature describing various aspects of the technology in infectious and autoimmune diseases, cancer, and metabolic diseases such as atherosclerosis and obesity. The combined annual market for these and related indications is close to $100 billion.
The company believes that its intellectual property assures commercially significant broad coverage of oral vaccine platform technology for therapeutic and prophylactic purposes.
For more information, visit http://www.immunitor.com.