Anergis, a Swiss-based biopharmaceutical company specializing in the discovery and development of novel allergy vaccines targeting the most frequent allergies, announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted patent protection for its AllerT birch pollen allergy treatment.

The patent No. 8,343,503 granted by the US Patent Office broadly covers composition of matter and medical use of AllerT, the lead product of Anergis. AllerT is composed of a set of three contiguous overlapping peptides (COPs) derived from the allergen Bet v 1, which plays a key role in inducing birch pollen allergy.

“This newly issued patent adds to our growing patent estate,” said Vincent Charlon, CEO of Anergis. “Already in January 2011, the US Patent Office granted the core technology patent ‘Allergen Fragments and Use Thereof’, which broadly covers our Contiguous Overlapping Peptide (COP) technology. This method allows selecting COPs for allergies caused by protein allergens.”

“Anergis' strategy is to file patents in  at least 17 countries across Europe, North America and the rest of the world. Four patent families are currently being pursued, including patents covering our core technology as well as specific products against bee venom, birch pollen and ragweed allergies,” said Christophe Reymond, CSO of Anergis.

AllerT is currently evaluated in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled phase IIb trial enrolling about 300 patients with moderate to severe birch pollen allergy in up to 30 trial centres throughout Europe. Results are expected in Q3, 2013. In an earlier phase I/IIa trial, a two-month treatment with AllerT was well tolerated by patients with moderate to severe allergy to birch pollen. In these patients, AllerT elicited longlasting immunological responses, evidenced by significantly elevated allergenspecific IgG4 antibody levels four years  after completion of the two-month treatment with AllerT.