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Wednesday October 7, 2:15 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Hemispherx Biopharma
Hemispherx Receives 326th Patent
Widens Already Broad Therapeutic Coverage to Include a Selective Immune Recovery Process in Patients Following Sudden Severe Trauma or Injury
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Hemispherx Biopharma (Amex: HEB - news) announced today receipt of its 326th patent, recently issued by the United States Patent Office (patent number 5,763,417). The significance of the unusually broad patent is to obtain exclusive pharmaceutical usage of Hemispherx's patented and proprietary immune-restorative drug compounds to new, broadly-defined, clinical situations. These situations include ''septic shock subsequent to trauma, burns, surgery, transfusion, radiation therapy, or chemotherapy (serious, life-threatening blood-borne infections) according to claims successfully made in the new patent. Patients with severe trauma, burns, etc., often suffer a catastrophic failure of their immune systems which may result in death even though surgical and non-invasive approaches would have otherwise helped them recover from the primary, non-immunolgical illness.
Previously issued U.S. and foreign counterpart patents, owned exclusively by Hemispherx, cover application of Hemispherx's core, technology platform, including Ampligen(R) to various human viral and immunologic disorders of man including chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), hepatitis and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), etc.
Hemispherx's issued patent position now has global dimensions as evidenced by 176 issued patents in the European Union, 66 issued in the Pacific Rim countries, 57 issued in non-European, non-Pacific Rim countries and 27 in the United States. The majority of Hemispherx patents do not expire until some period after the year 2010 and Hemispherx has, in addition, more than 120 pending applications in various geographic areas around the world.
Governmental-sponsored research done in Europe, Australia and the Far East, among other locations, indicate that these regions also represent major commercial opportunities based on the large number of untreated patients suffering with CFS and hepatitis, or, in the alternative, patients who experience clinical relapse following ineffective therapy.
Hemispherx's patent portfolio covers what the company believes are every commercial application of Ampligen and its core technology platform, regardless of who manufactures the drug. This extensive patent portfolio has been widely disclosed for years in the company's shareholder publications, including the prospectus for the Hemispherx initial public offering in 1995, the company's subsequent 10-K and 10-Q filings and other shareholder publications and a description is readily available on the Internet. The company has made available to analysts a detailed list of all of its more than 300 patents and registration numbers, and all of the leading analysts who follow Hemispherx closely have accurately described its strong commercial application patent position in their reports on the company.
The only analyst report that has been seriously in error and lacking in due diligence was one issued on September 22, 1998, by Asensio & Company, which noted that the underlying nucleic acid compositions for Hemispherx products can be produced under non-exclusive license, but did not recognize that such production is commercially worthless to any potential competitor without the commercial application rights locked up by Hemispherx's extensive patent portfolio.
Hemispherx, headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, is a biopharmaceutical company. The Company is engaged in the manufacture and global clinical development of new drug entities in the nucleic acid (NA) class for chronic viral diseases and disorders of the immune system including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).
Information contained in this news release other than historical information, should be considered forward-looking and is subject to various risk factors and uncertainties. For instance, the strategies and operations of Hemispherx involve risks of competition, changing market conditions, changes in laws and regulations affecting these industries and numerous other factors discussed in this release and in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Accordingly, actual results may differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements.
SOURCE: Hemispherx Biopharma |
