Medicortex Finland Oy, a biopharmaceutical company focusing on the development of diagnostics and drug treatment for mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), has announced that company’s core patent covering the diagnostic kit and innovative biomarker was granted in Canada.
“This is a big achievement – we are very pleased with the development of our patent portfolio” said Doctor Adrian Harel, Chief Executive Officer of Turku-based Medicortex. “This new issuance continues to increase the intellectual property portfolio covering methods of using certain biomarkers for detection of concussion and mild TBI. The issuance of this patent is another important step in the development of a robust patent portfolio relating to new strategy to help identify and treat mild TBI” Dr. Harel continued with great pleasure.
Medicortex is currently developing a rapid diagnostic kit for detection of concussion and mild traumatic brain injury from urine or saliva. The kit is based on specific biomarkers that the company has discovered from body fluids following brain injury. Such a rapid kit will satisfy the urgent need to improve the detection of brain injury in mild cases especially – which are known to be potentially morbid but difficult to diagnose with the contemporary means. The issued patent covers the core technology and method for detecting glycan-based biomarkers which are indicative of traumatic brain injury.
The issued Canadian patent number 2,982,503 “Prognostic and Diagnostic Glycan-Based Biomarkers of Brain Damage” is the third grant in the patent family where relative patents were previously issued in Europe and in the USA. Canada is an important region to get the biomarker technology protected as there are several hundreds of thousands brain injury cases in the country every year and the incidence is high because of national sports such as ice hockey and other winter games.
Medicortex’ patent portfolio encompasses diagnostics of TBI biomarkers as well as related drug candidates developed by the company. The comprehensive patent coverage secures exclusivity to develop the products and the company’s strategy is to actively seek new patentable innovations from its biomarker and drug development programs.
As Medicortex reached this important milestone, preparations are underway for an Initial Public Offering and a listing of the company’s shares on a stock exchange. Medicortex is currently performing a financing round (pre-IPO) which will equip Medicortex with the necessary resources to ambitiously further develop and strengthen the company for its planned IPO. To read more about the investment case, please visit the Medicortex website (www.medicortex.fi/investors).