EPIX Pharmaceuticals Inc. today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued US Patent No. 7,488,736 entitled “Thienopyridinone Compounds and Methods of Treatment” to EPIX.
A press release by EPIX stated that the granted claims of this patent are directed to the highly selective 5-HT4 small molecule agonist, PRX-03140, and to compositions that include PRX-03140 as one of the active ingredients. EPIX also has pending patent applications relating to compositions and methods of using PRX-03140.
“We believe this patent will be a valuable asset as we continue to develop PRX-03140 for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Elkan Gamzu, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of EPIX.
“In 2008, we announced compelling results of our Phase 2a clinical trial of PRX-03140 as a single agent and in combination with Aricept®, which demonstrated, among other characteristics, that PRX-03140 was well tolerated with no serious drug-related adverse events. As we continue to make progress in the development of PRX-03140, we believe this milestone may prove to be a significant benefit in the eventual commercialization of the compound, which we believe may have the potential to improve cognition and memory and to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.”
PRX-03140 is being developed under EPIX’s worldwide multi-target strategic collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline to discover, develop and market novel medicines targeting four G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCR) for the treatment of a variety of diseases.
EPIX has three drug candidates currently in the clinical stage of development that were discovered utilizing its proprietary computer-based GPCR platform and optimized with integrated computational-medicinal chemistry.
In May 2008, EPIX announced the initiation of its PRX-03140 Phase 2b program in Alzheimer's disease. The Phase 2b proof-of-concept program consists of two clinical trials - a six-month trial evaluating PRX-03140 in combination with donepezil and a three-month trial studying PRX-03140 as monotherapy. The combination trial began in early May 2008 and the monotherapy trial was initiated in late May 2008.
EPIX Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing novel therapeutics through the use of its proprietary and highly efficient in silico drug discovery platform.
SOURCE：AGIPNEWS
