Approvals

San Diego-headquartered biotechnology company GRI Bio has strengthened its global intellectual property portfolio with the addition of two new patents.

The rulings in Europe and Japan cover GRI Bio's investigational autoimmune disorder treatment as well as its research into inflammatory conditions.

Marc Hertz, chief executive officer at GRI Bio, said: “These granted patents represent another achievement in our initiative to bolster our global patent estate.

“We remain committed to expanding our intellectual property portfolio and strengthening our innovative pipeline of NKT cell modulators and library of over 500 proprietary compounds.

“We believe our highly differentiated approach to the prevention and treatment of inflammatory, fibrotic and autoimmune diseases represents a compelling opportunity to address unmet medical needs for patients.”

The European patent is titled, ‘Oxygenated Amino- or Ammonium Containing Sulfonic Acid, Phosphonic Acid and Carboxylic Acid Derivatives and Their Medical Use’. It aims to cover GRI-0803, which is the company’s activator of human type 2 diverse natural killer T (NKT) cells for the treatment of autoimmune disorders.

Meanwhile, GRI Bio's new Japan patent, titled ‘Prevention and Treatment of Inflammatory Conditions’, applies to research compositions and methods for modulating type 2 diverse and/or type 1 invariant NKT cells in the prevention and treatment of inflammatory conditions.

GRI Bio specialises in research into treatments for inflammatory, fibrotic and autoimmune diseases by targeting the activity of NKT cells, which are key regulators in the inflammatory cascade, to interrupt progression of disease and restore the immune system to homeostasis.

GRI-0621, the company’s lead programme, is being evaluated as a treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Topline phase 2a results are expected later this year.