Ben Richardson, CEO at SulNOx, confident they can cost-effectively decarbonise commercial shipping. Watch the video here.
That it takes quite a while (6-18 months if at all successful) to get a good formulation is true and I think that would be reason enough (whether the formulation is patented or not) for someone to want to buy it out.
No-one else will be ready in time to make an InfB for the next wave. If they manage to get accelerated approval (as they should) they should be able to do very well in the next few years.
Hi Ghia,
You might be right and that would be wonderful , but I think they would be in for a massive fight (with patent offices) on the basis that the inventive step to thinking that interferon B which has been shown to be really good for fighting lung based viral disease , might be good for fighting a different lung based viral disease is quite small.
I don't think there would be opposition from other companies as I cant see a benefit for other companies as they wouldn't be able to get any useful patents either.
I think the patent protection they already have would be enough to justify easily £300m of valuation, but I don't think it gives them exclusive for all uses of interferon B with COVID.
No DtD, the patent gives SNG the right to claim for patent infringement against a product that does all of the things stated in claim 1.
I'll be clear:
If a patient turns up less than 48 hours after he develops and measures a fever, anyone can give him nebulised interferon and SNG wont have a leg to stand on.
Come 48 hours, providing he's also got a cough and a headache (or at least two out of the 4 flu symptoms) SNG can step in and make a fuss.
If you sell a covid test and interferon combo kit which states you should only use the IB on people you have freshly diagnosed, happy days. (providing of course you're able to pay for all the clinical trials get the evidence etc. etc.)
Hi Davethedumplin, no, I'm an early stage VC so my job does include looking at patents (a lot). However, I've never seen one with a claim 1 with that kind of structure, so I think its very interesting and I'm digging around in the various patent communications to figure out how they got there. It's clear they didnt have Covid-19 in mind when they wrote the patent, but intention doesnt really matter.
Manifesto, I'm not paid to be a deramper, but I take it as a compliment providing you'll also consider me a decrasher. Analysis is a good thing, the other way there are naked emperors and the more relevant, Trumpism that "if we test less fewer people will die". I would apologise to people who have been through all the details of patent discussion before and find it boring but in the 33,000 posts on this board that separate today from the mid-April pointers to the patents (SGD17 doing a great job back then too thanks), there are many more boring posts about evil MMs distorting the market than discussion of sales margin, business model, potential purchasers or even the benefit to mankind that SNG will bring.
The link that disappeared from my last message was from the Guardian entitled. "Coronavirus symptoms fall into six different groupings, study finds"
Thanks for the pointer to the April discussions ... I'll search out of interest.
Thanks Dibs61 I was doing my own research and using the kind and expert people on this board to help - I was aware that I might get it in the neck from people worried I might be trying to crash the stock by asking questions. (or trying to ramp it)
My view (I work with many companies that do clinical trials and am comfortable with statistics) on the whether it works is that that's fine. Of course it could still go wrong down the line and this could be a 1 in 20 , but the likelihood of it being less good than dexamethasone (the best other thing so far) is very small and with their mode of action being so different it would rarely be an "either or" that's going to limit sales of Synairgen. I also think that it will highlight the potential of the benefit of SNG001 for influenza which also kills lots of people and is around every year. And for that the patents really do seem rock solid. Everyone who gets the flu has a headache and a sore body.
However (and I am teasing a bit here ) The patent says you have to have a fever AND two of the symptoms: headache, cough, sore throat and myalgia to be covered. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/covid-19-symptoms-falls-into-six-different-groupings-study-finds-coronavirus . This link has a nice analysis of how symptoms breakdown for patients. Certainly the last group would all fall under the patent guidelines and be the one that is most in need of treatment, but sore throat and headache are relatively rare in covid....
Sorry, I am genuinely trying to understand the situation, I am not trying to play anyone. I'll search the board to see what's been said in the past.
I'm not to my knowledge an MF crew ... not sure what one of those is.
SGD27 thank you very much for guiding me to that patent family.
There is a claim for nebuliser delivery but it's a dependent claim i.e. only for people with Asthma COPD.
A competitor would have to make sure that its product was clearly labelled, "not for Asthma or COPD patients". That would allow them to avoid this patent.
There are general usage nebulisers - I dont know if the accuracy of dose is very important with the interferon B and whether Synairgen's technology is different and able to more accurately dose it.
Their website doesn't really make any mention of special delivery capability.
US 9,089,535 B2 has been granted in the US but is specifically for people who are also suffering from COPD or Asthma
We claim:
1. A method of treating a patient with a viral-induced exacerbation of a respiratory disorder, the method comprising: administering to the patient a therapeutically effective amount of an agent, wherein the agent comprises:
(a) an interferon-? (IFN-?) polypeptide or
(b) a polynucleotide which expresses an IFN-? polypeptide in a target bronchial epithelial cell,
wherein the administration results in suppression of viral replication causing said viral-induced exacerbation in the patient, and said respiratory disorder is asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Yes of course. US20110177028A1 was the one that really caught my eye.
Claim 1 was:
1. A method of treating a respiratory tract infection in a non-asthmatic/non-COPD human individual, which comprises airway delivery of an agent selected from the group consisting of:
(i) IFN-ß;
(ii) an agent that increase IFN-ß expression; and
(iii) a polynucleotide that express one or more agents as in (i) or (ii) in human bronchial epithelial cells.
I've known about Synairgen for a long time and have been drawn like a moth by the results and noise around this. So I've done some looking at the patents....
I see dropped patents that covered interferon to the lungs for viral disease., this would in my mind open up the market for others to come in and compete.
Does anyone know which patents if any would stop others doing so?
Are there any patents that prevent anyone else just going ahead and delivering Interferon Beta to the lungs?
I've noticed that some of the related patents are held by Imperial Innovations so I may simply have missed some key patents.
Also it may be that the advantage they have in access to the clinical data would give them a big head start.