Announcements

Application for Provisional Patent Filed

24th April, 2009

A provisional patent application has been filed in the world’s largest pharmaceutical market, the USA, covering eighteen new semi synthetic analogues of alpha, gamma and delta tocotrienols which have been prepared and tested for anticancer activity against highly malignant mouse +SA epithelial cells and human   MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells.  Many of these compounds show better potency, improved chemical and metabolic stability, and improved water solubility as compared to their parent tocotrienols isomers.

The eighteen new semi synthetic analogues have been developed over the past 16 months by Dr. Khalid El Sayed’s laboratory at the College of Pharmacy, University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM), one of the four laboratories involved in research work under the Breast Cancer and Health Project which is sponsored by Beta Pharmaceutical Limited and its partner, First Tech International Limited.  Dr. El Sayed’s work involves semi synthesis, which is the use of a simple single-step chemical reaction to modify the structure of existing natural compounds.

The filing of the provisional patent application gives the Company the confidence to continue its work with the objective to demonstrate the ability of alpha, gamma and delta tocotrienols and their new analogues to inhibit cellular invasion of the highly metastatic human MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells and prove up the potential of these newly developed tocotrienol-derivative/analogues for use in the prevention and treatment of breast cancer in humans.

Other studies are currently also being conducted using computer-assisted design for the production of additional semi synthetic tocotrienol analogues which is accelerating the progress of Dr. El Sayed’s work to identify new compounds in this area.  Beta Pharmaceutical Limited is confident that new patents will be filed in due course covering new compounds in this area.

Given that the present patent application covers eighteen new compounds with anticancer activity, and that the research work to discover other new compounds is proceeding at full speed, management believes that an opportunity is emerging for a major drug development company to participate in this lead compound development programme.

Beta Pharmaceutical Limited focuses on research and development of effective treatments for breast cancers.

Breast cancer accounts for around a third of all cancers diagnosed in women, making it the most commonly diagnosed tumour type in females (Pruthi et al., 2007).  In the USA alone, around 180,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and about 40,000 will die from the disease (SEER, 2007; www.seer.cancer.gov).  Breast cancer can also occur in males, but this is much rarer and accounts for only 1% of all cases of the disease (Pant and Dutta, 2007).

latest news