DelMar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a notice of allowance for patent application number 14/083,135, entitled, "Analytical Method for Analyzing and Determining Impurities in Dianhydrogalactitol (VAL-083)".

"This new patent allowance is representative of our intellectual property strategy aimed at protecting and enhancing the value of VAL-083," stated Jeffrey Bacha, DelMar's president and CEO.  "This patent provides a broad portfolio of new claims around VAL-083, a drug candidate that showed promise against multiple cancers in previous clinical trials sponsored by the US National Cancer Institute (NCI).  These modern analytical methods are important in assuring the quality and purity of our drug product as we advance toward registration trials in the United States and seek to unlock the global commercial potential of VAL-083."

VAL-083 is a first-in-class, small-molecule chemotherapeutic with a unique mechanism of action.  In more than 40 Phase 1 and 2 clinical studies sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, VAL-083 has shown safety and efficacy in treating a number of cancers including lung, brain, cervical, ovarian tumors and leukemia.  VAL-083 is approved in China for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia and lung cancer and has received orphan drug designation in Europe and the U.S. for the treatment of gliomas.  As a potential treatment for glioblastoma, VAL-083's mechanism of action is unaffected by the expression of MGMT, a DNA repair enzyme that causes chemotherapy resistance to front-line treatment with Temodar (temozolomide).  DelMar is currently studying VAL-083 in a phase 1/2 clinical trial for patients with refractory glioblastoma multiforme.

DelMar Pharmaceuticals was founded in 2010 to develop and commercialize proven cancer therapies in new orphan drug indications where patients are failing modern targeted or biologic treatments.