MolecularMD Announces Issuance of Patent Covering Methods for Therapeutic Resistance Monitoring in Lung Cancer Patients
December 9th, 2011
PORTLAND, OR, Dec 09, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — MolecularMD Corp. today announces the issuance of a patent titled “Methods and Compositions for Detecting a Drug Resistant EGFR Mutant.” The newly issued U.S. Patent is based on the pioneering work of researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center to identify causes of resistance in patients treated with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) targeted therapies erlotinib (Tarceva(TM)) or gefitinib (Iressa(TM))(1). MolecularMD has exclusively licensed the commercial rights to this intellectual property which covers methods for detecting the EGFR T790M mutation.
“A high proportion of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with erlotinib or gefitinib develop the gatekeeper EGFR T790M mutation. Identifying this mutation with our test will support development of promising next-generation EGFR-targeted therapies critical to overcoming resistance,” commented Stephane Wong, Chief Scientific Officer of MolecularMD.
The new U.S. Patent, No. 8,067,175, describes methods of detecting the EGFR T790M mutation as it relates to acquired resistance in patients harboring activating EGFR mutations. Monitoring for the emergence of the EGFR T790M mutation will allow for early identification of acquired resistance and prompt treatment intervention.