Scouting Novel Therapeutic Molecule for IP Licensing

Regulatory filings: All upcoming requests &amp; approvals in various geographies where the client operates: Asia, Middle East &amp; Africa (AMEA) Europe Latin America North America
Regulatory trends: Product segment-wise Technology-wise Others

The Client

European Pharmaceutical giant.

Challenge

IP head of a European pharmaceutical company approached us with a challenging task, wherein IeB was asked to perform worldwide patent scouting for novel small pharmaceutical molecules for breast cancer therapy, originating from universities for the licensing/research collaboration purpose.

Our Solution

Considering the broad scope of the search worldwide, we broke the project into three key steps –

For conducting patents/patent applications searches for novel small molecules for breast cancer assigned to universities, we prepared a list and search strategies around important receptors e.g. estrogen receptors, HER-2, etc. [Results pertaining to large molecules, for example, antibodies, mab, etc. were filtered out].
Results retrieved from step 1 were subjected to important consideration with respect to successful pre-clinical reports in patent documents, research papers, or clinical trials by the same assignee/inventors.
Finally, a detailed report was presented to the client for all active patent references that claim chemical molecules with good activity reports, mentioned either in the patent document itself or in a research paper/conference paper/clinical trial detail. A total of 85 potential small molecules were reported.

Our Impact

The report helped the IP head to select one potential small molecule in co-ordination with his R&D head. This molecule (a selective estrogen receptor modulator) has proven well in preclinical stages and survived invalidity study. The company is now planning to sponsor a clinical trial study for this molecule.