Immtech Pharmaceuticals Inc. has announced that The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a patent to Immtech's Scientific Consortium related to a compound that may be useful for treating bovine viral diarrhoea virus and the hepatitis C virus. The patent, entitled "Compounds, methods and compositions useful for the treatment of bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) infection and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection," was issued on January 16, 2007.
Norman A Abood, Ph D, Immtech's vice president, discovery programmes, stated, "Our discovery programme in HCV is yielding exciting results. The growing intellectual property portfolio related to our library of HCV discovery compounds, including this first issued patent, is the result of Immtech's investment in research for the substantial HCV market."
Immtech expects additional patents to be issued in the future covering various other compounds, composition, and methods of use for treating BVDV and HCV. This patent is the first to issue in a family of similarly entitled patent applications currently pending in both the USPTO and other patent offices around the world. The issued patent names inventors from Auburn University, Georgia State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).
Under its agreement with these universities, Immtech has an exclusive, worldwide license to all patents that issue in this family. Scott T Forrest, assistant director of UNC's Office of Technology Development, stated, "This is the latest example of the continued successful prosecution of the intellectual property portfolio licensed to Immtech, and represents an important commercial milestone in Immtech's collaboration with the Scientific Consortium." Eric L Sorkin, Immtech's chairman and CEO, stated, "The issuance of this patent not only demonstrates Immtech's commitment to finding a treatment for hepatitis C, it also reflects the success of Immtech's collaborators, who work across multiple universities and with Immtech to enable exciting new discovery programs. We believe that we efficiently advance, at reduced cost, the collective work of many leading scientists. This model aims to deliver tangible benefits for various groups of stakeholders; including patients, doctors, the scientists with whom we collaborate and Immtech's investors."
Immtech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is focused on developing and commercialising drugs to treat infectious diseases, and the company is expanding its targeted markets by applying its proprietary pharmaceutical platform to treat other disorders. Immtech has advanced clinical programs that include new oral treatments for Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP), malaria, and trypanosomiasis (African sleeping sickness), and a well defined, expanding library of compounds targeting fungal infections, Hepatitis C and other serious diseases.