Sydney, Australia 6 December 2017 – Clarity Pharmaceuticals, a radiopharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of serious disease, is pleased to announce that it has successfully in-licensed a patent application on a Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) targeting agent for imaging and treating prostate cancer from the University of Melbourne. Clarity is also pleased to provide an update on the most recent developments in its patent portfolio.
University of Melbourne’s PSMA prostate cancer targeting agent has been developed over the last two years as part of the long-standing collaboration between Clarity, Associate Professor Paul Donnelly, Clarity’s scientific adviser and inventor of its underlying SAR technology, at the University of Melbourne, and Professor Rodney Hick’s team at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The new agent has been developed using the SAR technology which allows for the potential for imaging and therapy.
Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and the global prostate cancer treatment market is predicted to reach $13.6 billion by 2021. Clarity’s technology has significant potential in the market as it enables a number of advantages over current technologies in development due to the benefits of using the radio-isotope pairing of copper-64 and copper-67, including centralised manufacture, diagnosis, prospective dosimetry and therapy.
Clarity has aggressively pursued the protection of its proprietary radio-imaging and radio-therapeutic agents around the world with a broad and deep patenting strategy in order to safeguard these products and sustain its competitive advantage in the area of radiopharmaceuticals. The outcome of this has been the allowance of a number of Clarity’s exclusively licensed patent applications or the filing of directly owned patent applications in major international jurisdictions. In addition to actively pursuing protection for its radiopharmaceuticals, Clarity has also currently established a freedom to operate position in relation to its key compounds that are under development.
The MeCOSar patent estate protecting Clarity’s most advanced commercial products has recently been granted in key jurisdictions worldwide including Australia, Canada, China, Japan, the United States of America, and in strategic jurisdictions in Europe.
Three other patent families, known as SAR-3, SAR-4, and SAR-5, cover radio-imaging and therapeutic agents comprising additional linker technologies that broaden the scope of protection for Clarity’s commercial products. The SAR-3 family has been protected with granted patents in Europe, Japan, and the United States of America, with further applications pending in a number of other jurisdictions. SAR-4 comprises granted patents in the United States of America and Japan, with further applications pending in a number of other jurisdictions. SAR-5 is covered by granted patents in Europe and Japan, with further applications pending in a number of other jurisdictions.
These patents and applications not only protect Clarity’s lead product, SARTATE™, which is focused on paediatric cancers, and PSMA for prostate cancer, but also Clarity’s third product, Bombesin (SAR-BBN). SAR-BBN is a pan cancer product that is ideal for radiopharmaceutical development, showing very effective and specific accumulation in preclinical cancer models and rapid clearance from the body. This means it would be ideally suited for theranostic (therapy and diagnostic) development with potentially high effectiveness and minimal side effects for the treatment of a broad range of cancers including glioma, prostate, breast, small cell lung cancers, gastrointestinal stromal tumours and in tumoural vessels of urinary cancers.
Clarity’s Executive Chairman, Dr Alan Taylor, commented: “Clarity’s patenting strategy enables us to successfully leverage our intellectual property to develop a pipeline of radiopharmaceuticals. We have been fortunate to receive broad patent coverage that provides protection with any targeting agent and allows us to file additional patents or continuations to patents. SARTATE™, SAR-PSMA and SAR-BBN are great examples of this strategy. We are determined to fully exploit our broad intellectual property position and use the platform to develop effective treatments for children and adults with cancer. None of this would have been possible without the long collaboration between Clarity and the University of Melbourne, and we are excited to see the continuing value of such a relationship for all involved.”
About Clarity
Clarity Pharmaceuticals is a personalised medicine company focused on the treatment of serious disease. The Company is a leader in innovative radiopharmaceutical technology, developing targeted therapies and assisting in the drug development pipeline of novel therapies for companies globally.
www.claritypharmaceuticals.com
About the University of Melbourne
Established in 1853, the University of Melbourne is a public-spirited institution that makes distinctive contributions to society in research, learning and teaching and engagement. It’s consistently ranked among the leading universities in the world, with international rankings of world universities placing it as number 1 in Australia and number 32 in the world (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2017-2018).
Media Contact
Dr Alan Taylor
Executive Chairman
Ph: +61 (0)413 871 165
E: ataylor@claritypharm.com
