NEW YORK, March 8, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Intellect Neurosciences, Inc. (OTCBB:ILNS), a biopharmaceutical company with an internal preclinical and clinical-stage pipeline and licenses with major pharmaceutical companies covering products in late-stage clinical trials, announced today that it has received a new patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") in relation to the Company's RECALL-VAXTM technology platform. Patents for RECALL-VAXTM have been issued in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and corresponding patent applications are pending in Canada, China, Japan and Israel. RECALL-VAXTM is a method to immunize people to produce highly specific natural antibodies against the beta amyloid ("Aβ") protein before it causes irreversible damage by accumulating in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. The vaccine has the potential to delay onset or prevent Alzheimer's disease in individuals susceptible by age, genetic or other risk factor. The approach can be applied to additional therapeutic targets associated with Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative conditions. Professor Benjamin Chain, Department of Immunology, UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences, London, UK, is the inventor of RECALL-VAXTM. Professor Chain, brother of Dr. Daniel Chain, Intellect's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, is a member of the Company's scientific advisory board.
Dr. Daniel Chain commented: "This new patent from the USPTO is yet another important milestone for the Company and is indicative of the type of ground breaking research we do that is aimed at discovering and developing drugs that can fundamentally transform the way Alzheimer's disease is treated and ultimately prevent the onset of the disease. Intellect has two immunotherapy approaches: The more advanced of the two is the ANTISENILIN® platform, which uses recombinant monoclonal antibodies as highly specific drugs to prevent the accumulation of soluble Aβ in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. The ANTISENILIN® technology underlies products under development by major pharmaceutical companies, such as Ponezumab in Phase 2 and Bapineuzumab in Phase 3 clinical trials, respectively. RECALL-VAXTM pinpoints the same unique molecular signatures at the ends of Aβ to reproduce the same type of specificity that can be obtained using ANTISENILIN® monoclonal antibodies. However, instead of administering antibodies to patients, RECALL-VAXTM involves injecting a small piece of Aβ coupled to an innocuous bacterial protein with the goal of allowing the patient's immune system to generate antibodies that uniquely bind Aβ. A vaccine of this nature, which is analogous to a flu shot, could be viewed as the ultimate quest in Alzheimer's research. We look forward to developing drug candidates based on RECALL-VAXTM technology with the aim of ultimately testing the vaccine in human clinical trials."
About Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, is characterized by progressive loss of memory and cognition, ultimately leading to complete debilitation and death. A hallmark feature of Alzheimer's pathology is the presence of insoluble protein deposits, known as amyloid beta, on the surface of nerve cells, which results from the accumulation of soluble neurotoxic amyloid beta in the brain. The effects of the disease are devastating to patients as well as their caregivers, with significant associated health care costs. It is estimated that there are more than five million Americans and about 30 million people worldwide suffering from Alzheimer's disease, with the number expected to increase dramatically as the global population ages. Currently-marketed drugs transiently affect some symptoms of the disease, but there are no drugs on the market today that slow or arrest the progression of the disease. In the United States, Medicare spending on Alzheimer's disease is estimated to total $160 billion this year.
About Intellect Neurosciences, Inc.
Intellect Neurosciences, Inc. is a Manhattan-based biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of disease-modifying therapeutic agents for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease and other disorders. The Company's most advanced internally developed product is OX1 which has been tested in Phase 1 clinical trials. The Company plans to conduct clinical proof of concept patient trials for OX1 in Alzheimer's disease and Friedreich's Ataxia, a rare inherited disease that brings about free-radical mediated progressive damage to the nervous system. In addition, the Company's internal pipeline includes IN-N01, a humanized monoclonal antibody designed to promote the clearance of soluble beta amyloid and RECALL-VAXTM, a vaccine technology that has the potential to delay or prevent Alzheimer's disease in people who are at risk.
The Company has significant intellectual property assets, which include several patent families underlying the Company's internal programs, and a pivotal patent estate regarding passive Alzheimer's immunotherapy. The Company's ANTISENILIN® patent estate claims monoclonal antibodies that bind either end of amyloid beta but do not interact with the amyloid precursor protein from which amyloid beta is produced in the body. This high degree of specificity is an important safety feature, reducing the potential for adverse affects. Examples of monoclonal antibodies exhibiting this property are Bapineuzumab and Ponezumab, which are in Alzheimer's Phase 3 and Phase 2 clinical trials, respectively (http://clinicaltrials.gov).
Patents have been granted in Europe, Japan, China and elsewhere and are pending in the United States. Intellect has granted royalty-bearing licenses to its ANTISENILIN® patent estate to several top tier global pharmaceutical companies developing monoclonal antibodies for Alzheimer's disease. For further information, see the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Forms 8-K filed on:
May 1, 2009
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1337905/000114420409023426/v147731_8k.htm
January 8, 2009
October 14, 2008
May 19, 2008
Safe Harbor Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements:
The statements in this release and oral statements made by representatives of Intellect relating to matters that are not historical facts (including without limitation those regarding future performance or financial results, the timing or potential outcomes of research collaborations or clinical trials, any market that might develop for any of Intellect's product candidates and the sufficiency of Intellect's cash and other capital resources) are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the likelihood that actual performance or results could materially differ, that future research will prove successful, the likelihood that any product in the research pipeline will receive regulatory approval in the United States or abroad, or Intellect's ability to fund such efforts with or without partners. Intellect undertakes no obligation to update any of these statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as to the date hereof. Accordingly any forward-looking statements should be read in conjunction with the additional risks and uncertainties detailed in Intellect's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including those factors discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" in Intellect's Annual Report on Form 10-K, (file no. 333-128226) filed on October 13, 2010 and information contained in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three month period ended on September 30, 2010 filed on November 18, 2010.
CONTACT: Intellect Neurosciences, Inc. Elliot Maza, JD, CPA President and Chief Financial Officer 45 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10018, USA. Tel. 212-448-9300 http://www.intellectns.com