Today, VistaGen Therapeutics
announced that it has received broader intellectual property protection for its
stem cell technology platform. The United States Patent and Trademark Office
recently issued a notice of allowance (NOA) for U.S. Patent Application
12/836,275, entitled “Cell populations enriched for endoderm cells.” The NOA
extends VistaGen Therapeutics’ intellectual property portfolio for pluripotent
stem cell culture systems that produce human cells of the endoderm lineage,
including liver, lung, pancreas, parathyroid, and thyroid cells.
When issued, this patent
will be complementary to U.S. Patent Nos. 7,763,466, 8,512,957 and 8,143,009,
both of which are exclusively licensed by VistaGen Therapeutics from the Ichan
School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
“This patent allowance is
another critical step in extending intellectual property protection for our
stem cell technology platform. LiverSafe 3D™, one of our core assay systems for
drug rescue, in particular stands to benefit greatly from this broader
intellectual property protection,” stated Shawn K. Singh, VistaGen’s Chief
Executive Officer.
“In addition to expanding
the scope of our drug rescue opportunities, this patent allowance and our
world-class differentiation expertise put VistaGen in a unique position to
pursue potential stem cell research collaborations related to liver biology and
drug metabolism assays, as well as pancreatic beta-islet cells for drug and
regenerative cell therapy for diabetes,” said Ralph Snodgrass, Ph.D.,
VistaGen’s President and Chief Scientific Officer.
VistaGen Therapeutics’
reception of the NOA builds on other recent developments that could be
promising for the company. VistaGen Therapeutics recently joined the Cardiac
Research Safety Consortium, a driving force in public-private research that
evaluates the cardiac safety of medical products. The Cardiac Research Safety
Consortium draws upon expertise from key stakeholders in the industrial,
academic, and governmental sectors for data sharing and expertise. It was
launched as a public-private partnership in 2006 through an FDA Critical Path
Initiative Memorandum of Understanding with Duke University. With this new
membership, VistaGen Therapeutics can benefit from new, key partnerships in the
future.
The company’s LiverSafe 3D™
technology is a human liver cell-based biological assay system capable of
predicting liver toxicity and metabolism issues in drug candidates that have
been stop-gapped for development due to any unexpected liver problems arising
during development. This technology is complemented by VistaGen Therapeutics’
other technology, CardioSafe 3D™, another biological assay that is useful in
predicting in vivo cardiac effects, both toxic and nontoxic, of promising new
drug candidates long before they are tested in humans.
More information about
VistaGen Therapeutics, its developments, and its potentially revolutionary
innovations for the biotechnological space can be found at www.vistagen.com.
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