Potential SLE Drug Receives US Patent
Novato-based Mount Tam Biotechnologies announced the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a key patent for the company’s lead systemic lupus erythematous (SLE) drug candidate, TAM-01, an innovative small-molecule modulator of the mTOR pathway that plays an important role in regulating the cell cycle.
The patent, owned by The Buck Institute for Research on Aging and fully licensed to Mount Tam through a worldwide exclusive licensing and collaboration agreement, provides composition-of-matter protection for TAM-01 until December 2032.
The Buck Institute is the nation’s first independent research facility focused solely on understanding the connection between aging and chronic diseases.
“This is an important step for Mount Tam, significantly strengthening our intellectual property portfolio while providing a clear runway for our lead compound, TAM-01, which we believe has the potential to be an important new treatment option for patients with systemic lupus erythematous (SLE),” Richard Marshak, Mount Tam CEO, said in a recent press release.
Mount Tam plans to begin the Investigational New Drug (IND) application phase for TAM-01 with the FDA. The company has already completed non-GLP pre-clinical development for the compound in an effort to advance TAM-01 for the treatment of SLE in a growing orphan drug market.
Non-Europeans more often carry genes that increase the likelihood of developing systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), according to a report by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College London.
The study, “Genome-wide association meta-analysis in Chinese and European individuals identifies ten new loci associated with systemic lupus erythematosus,” published in the journal Nature Genetics, could spur the development of tests for predicting lupus risk, and possibly allow a more personalized approach to treat the autoinflammatory condition, according to the study’s senior author Timothy Vyse, PhD.
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