(News Bulletin 247) – The biotech announced Thursday evening that the Canadian patent office had issued a notice of acceptance for a patent relating to methods of treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis with mastinib.

AB Science adds another patent to protect its flagship molecule. The biotech announced Thursday evening that the Canadian patent office had issued a notice of acceptance for a patent relating to methods of treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with this molecule, mastinib.

ALS is characterized by the degeneration and death of certain motor neurons which cease to send messages to the muscles, thus causing progressive paralysis. It causes the death of the patient after a period ranging from 3 to 5 years. Its prevalence in Western countries is about 6 per 100,000 people, which corresponds to about 30,000 cases in Europe and 20,000 in the United States.

The patent obtained by AB Science provides “strong protection for mastinib in the treatment of ALS until 2037 and completes the company’s intellectual property position in ALS in all geographies where mastinib could be commercialized” , argues the biotech in its press release.

Canadian Marketing Application Review

“In addition to patent protection, masitinib is also eligible for regulatory data protection in Canada, which prevents generic competition for a period of eight years from initial marketing authorization,” adds the company.

On the Paris Stock Exchange, this announcement slightly supports the title AB Science, which rose by nearly 4% around 9:50 a.m. after having gained more than 7% at the start of the session.

The biotech had obtained in April a patent in Japan for mastinib in the treatment of ALS. This was already added to a long list including Europe, the United States, China, South Korea, Israel, Australia, Singapore, Mexico, New Zealand, Eurasia and even Europe. ‘South Africa.

In Canada specifically, AB Science submitted a marketing application for mastinib, which was not without some pitfalls. The local health agency, Health Canada, had thus sent him a notice of insufficiency in December, interrupting the examination of the molecule.

But, in early May, the company announced that Health Canada had taken over the review of the registration dossier for mastinib, thus deeming “acceptable” the information and documents sent by AB Science in response to the deficiency notice in December. The Canadian health agency now has a period of just over 200 days to examine the file. About 3,000 Canadians are currently living with ALS, according to the society’s estimates, and 1,000 die from it every year.

Masitinib has also received orphan drug designation for ALS from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), European and US health authorities. “This designation of orphan drug confers respectively 10 and 7 years of market exclusivity in Europe and the United States from the registration of the product”, explains the company.