22 Sep 2010 07:00
e-Therapeutics plc
("e-Therapeutics" or the "Company")
Comprehensive Set of Patents Granted in US
~ Strengthens e-Therapeutics' Global Position as theLeader in Network Pharmacology ~
22 September, Newcastle upon Tyne.e-Therapeutics plc, the drug discovery and development company, is pleased to announce today that a further wide-ranging patent has been granted to the Company by the United States Patent and Trade Office ("USPTO").
Together with earlier patent grants to the Company, this grant now provides a broad set of key controlling patents for network pharmacology techniques in the US. This announcement follows previous notifications that the Company has been granted patentprotection for part of its drug discovery technology in the US, Europe and India. The patent has an effective priority date in 2002, reflecting the longstanding, pioneering work by e-Therapeutics to develop novel processes for drug discovery, which began almost ten years ago. The Companynow has controlling patents in force over wide applications of network analysis for identifying targets, drug interactions and combination effects in biomedicine.
Commenting on the announcement Professor Malcolm Young, Chief Executive Officer of e-Therapeutics, said:"The grant of this wide-ranging patent is another key milestone for the Company and brings significant benefit to e-Therapeutics. Network pharmacology is one of very few growth areaswithin the internal research programmes of major pharmaceutical companies.
"In addition to confirming e-Therapeutics' novel science, the strength of our IP-backed position - coupled with the most extensive experience in this area - means that we can look forward with confidence to creating value for our partners and shareholders from the growth of network pharmacology activity worldwide."
For more information, please contact:
e-Therapeutics plc
Malcolm Young / John Cordiner
Tel: +44 (0) 191 233 1317
E-mail: malcolm@etherapeutics.co.uk
www.etherapeutics.co.uk
Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited
Andrew Burnett / Aubrey Powell
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7459 3600
www.panmuregordon.com
Financial and healthcare trade media enquiries:
M:Communications
Mary-Jane Elliott / Emma Thompson
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7920 2330
E-mail: healthcare@mcomgroup.com
www.mcomgroup.com
Notes for editors
About e-Therapeutics
e-Therapeutics is a pioneering network pharmacologycompany focused on drug discovery and development and providing solutions to partners. e-Therapeutics has a broad clinical pipeline that combines mid- and late-stage pharmaceutical products with earlier stage opportunities, all addressing important market sectors and unmet medical needs. e-Therapeutics' novel discovery and de-risking platform is becoming increasingly well validated, demonstrating far higher productivity than conventional development approaches and enabling e-Therapeutics to continue to deliver many valuable new development candidates to its portfolio. The technology allows earlier assessment of the likely efficacy and toxicity of candidate drugs than in conventional discovery and development. e-Therapeutics, which has a strong IP position, is focused on the progression of its drug development programmes, securing further strategically important partners, and broadening its pipeline with new, de-risked drug candidates.
Network pharmacology is a new paradigm in drug discovery. It is based on a more realistic view of the interaction of drug molecules with networks of proteins inside and between cells. It uses information on these protein networks in diseased and normal cells; information about the full range of proteins that are affected by the presence of a molecule; and a validated computational technique to determine the impact of these interactions on these cells. This approach is now a feature of several of the major pharmaceutical companies' internal activities and interest in this area is growing rapidly. e-Therapeutics is based in the UK. For more information, please visit http://www.etherapeutics.co.uk.