Erytech strengthed its intellectual property portfolio in the United States with the granting of a new patent and the further extension of the patent term of its core process patent. The French biopharmaceutical company develops innovative ‘tumor starvation’ treatments for acute leukemia and other oncology indications with unmet medical needs.
The patent entitled “Medicament for the Treatment of Cancer of the Pancreas” has been granted in the US and covers the use of ERY-ASP1, Erytech’s lead product for the treatment of pancreatic cancer (currently in Phase II clinical trial). In accordance with the mechanism of Patent Term Adjustment, the USPTO, the Amercian patent office, has added almost a year of additional protection, bringing the validity of the patent term until October 2029. The patent was filed end 2007 and has since been granted in Europe, Australia, Israel and Singapore.
Separately, the USPTO has granted an additional one and a half years of patent term adjustment to Erytech’s core process patent entitled “Lysis/Resealing Process for Preparing Erythrocytes”. This patent had already received almost four years of additional protection according to the American Patent Term Adjustment legislation. Following a recent recalculation of the patent term, requested by Erytech, the USPTO granted one and a half year of additional patent term, bringing the validity of the patent until 2030.
So doing the company has in total been able to obtain five years of addition protection for this core patent that covers the heart of its encapsulation technology and products like GRASPA/ERY-ASP. In both cases, the patent term could further be extended with a maximum of five years on the basis of future marketing authorizations.