Patent granted to Biotec Pharmacon in USA

Biotec Pharmacon reports that one of the company's patent applications referring to a combination therapy for cancer treatment has been granted in USA.

The patent is a composition patent protecting combinations of Biotec Pharmacon's proprietary compound soluble yeast beta-glucan (SBG) as an adjuvant together with monoclonal antibodies for treatment of cancer.

Biotec Pharmacon is pleased to report that one of the company's patent applications referring to a combination therapy for cancer treatment has been granted in the U.S. and will be published as US 7,704,973. Biotec Pharmacon has developed the concept behind the patent together with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). Biotec Pharmacon and MSKCC are joint owners of this technology and the company has an exclusive license on MSKCC's rights to this patent. Further patent applications in this patent family are still pending in other countries.

The granted patent protects a combination of injected anti-cancer antibodies and oral administered yeast beta glucan.  The combination greatly enhanced the anti-tumor effects against established tumors irrespective of  tumor type and tumor sites in the animal models and gave also promising treatment effects in patients with neuroblastoma. In addition to patent protection, the favourable toxicity profile of SBG, combined with the convenience of oral administration, makes SBG a promising candidate as an adjuvant in cancer therapy.

Svein Lien, Biotec Pharmacon CEO, commented: "We are pleased to secure this intellectual property as a part of our long terms strategy to develop SBG as an adjuvant to antibody together with our partner MSKCC in New York.  This is an application we will continue to invest in as we believe that immune stimulation with SBG has a role to enhance the effect of several types of cancer treatments."

More information on Biotec Pharmacon's website