Q BioMed Inc. (OTCQB:QBIO) has received a notice of an allowable patent from the US Patent Office related to its liver cancer treatment Uttroside B.
The company already holds patents in Korea, Canada and Japan, and Uttroside B previously received Orphan Drug designation from the US Food and Drug Administration.
Q BioMed has exclusive rights to the technology through an agreement with the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, an autonomous institute under the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
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Recent results from pre-clinical pharmacokinetic testing have been very encouraging and the data supports advancing the program, the company said. In early pre-clinical investigation, Uttroside-B showed ten times the cytotoxicity against HCC, which is the toxicity caused due to the action of the chemotherapeutic agent on living cancer cells, as compared to the current standard of care drug at the time.
There certainly is a need. The America Cancer Society reported that this year alone, an estimated 42,000 adults in the US will be diagnosed with primary liver cancer. It is also estimated that 30,000 deaths from the disease will occur this year.
Currently, there are only two approved first-line mono therapies and a combination first-line therapy for HCC, the company said. Challenges with current treatments include patients becoming resistant to the specific drugs, adverse side effects and high costs.
The global liver cancer drug market size was valued at US$824 Million in 2020 and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 29.4% during the forecast period 2021 to 2030, the company said.
Q BioMed is focused on accelerating the monetization of biomedical technologies through rapid innovation and collaborative partnerships with industry-leading researchers.
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