CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vedanta Biosciences, pioneering the development of a novel class of therapies designed to modulate pathways of interaction between the human microbiome and the host immune system, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued U.S. Patent No. 9,415,079. The patent broadly covers pharmaceutical compositions and mixtures of Clostridium live bacterial strains and builds on Vedanta’s patent issuances in Japan. The issued patent is exclusively licensed worldwide to Vedanta under an agreement with the University of Tokyo and provides coverage through at least 2031.
The patented technology is based on ground-breaking work by Dr. Kenya Honda, a scientific co-founder of Vedanta. Dr. Honda’s work provides an avenue for the treatment of a variety of diseases including immune and infectious diseases employing bacterial strains belonging to Clostridium clusters IV and/or XIVa. Clostridium bacteria include a variety of spore-forming species that can abundantly colonize the gut.
“We believe this issuance puts Vedanta in an IP leadership position in the microbiome field,” said Bernat Olle, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Vedanta. “The patent has broad, fundamental claims that we believe will be important for the commercialization of microbiome therapeutics based on bacterial consortia. We intend to continue to build value from our IP estate through our internal programs as well as alliances with pharmaceutical partners.”
About Vedanta
Vedanta
Biosciences is pioneering development of a novel class of therapies
designed to modulate pathways of interaction between the human
microbiome and the host immune system, with clinical trials in certain
indications expected to begin in the first half of 2017. Founded by PureTech
Health (PureTech Health plc, PRTC.L) and a group of world-renowned
experts in immunology and microbiology, Vedanta Biosciences is a leader
in the microbiome field with capabilities to discover, develop and
manufacture drugs based on live commensal microbes. Leveraging its
proprietary technology platform and the expertise of its team of
scientific cofounders, Vedanta Biosciences has isolated a vast
collection of human-associated bacterial strains and characterized how
the immune system recognizes and responds to these microbes. This work
has led to the identification of human commensal bacteria that induce a
range of immune responses – including induction of regulatory T cells
and Th17 cells, among others – as well as the characterization of novel
molecular mechanisms of microbial-host communication. These advances
have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including Science,
Nature
(multiple),
Cell
and Nature
Immunology. Vedanta has harnessed these biological
insights as well as data from clinical translational collaborations to
generate a pipeline of programs in development for infectious disease,
autoimmune disease, inflammation and immune-oncology. The clinical
potential of therapeutic manipulation of the microbiome has been
validated by multiple randomized, controlled trials in infectious
disease and inflammatory bowel disease.
Vedanta’s scientific co-founders have pioneered the fields of innate immunity, Th17 and regulatory T cell biology, and include Dr. Ruslan Medzhitov (Professor of Immunobiology at Yale), Dr. Alexander Rudensky (tri-institutional Professor at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute, the Rockefeller University and Cornell University), Dr. Dan Littman (Professor of Molecular Immunology at NYU), Dr. Brett Finlay (Professor at the University of British Columbia) and Dr. Kenya Honda (Professor, School of Medicine, Keio University).
Forward Looking Statement
This press release contains
statements that are or may be forward-looking statements, including
statements that relate to the company's future prospects, developments
and strategies. The forward-looking statements are based on current
expectations and are subject to known and unknown risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance and
achievements to differ materially from current expectations, including,
but not limited to, those risks and uncertainties described in the risk
factors included in the regulatory filings for PureTech Health plc.
These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions regarding the
present and future business strategies of the company and the
environment in which it will operate in the future. Each forward-looking
statement speaks only as at the date of this press release. Except as
required by law and regulatory requirements, neither the company nor any
other party intends to update or revise these forward-looking
statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or
otherwise.
