Nicholas Piramal India informed the BSE today that the US Patent and Trademark office has granted it a product patent that covers new compounds used as therapeutic agents in the treatment of cancer. This includes a company's clinical candidate P-276-00, and processes for its preparation.New data and studies done on the compound P-276-00 would also be presented by Noopur Raje from Dr Ken Anderson group, Dana Faber Cancer Institute at the 49th Annual Meeting and Exposition of American Society of Hematology (ASH) being held at Atlanta, Georgia. Swati Piramal, director - strategic alliances and communications of the company said, "The presentation of data on pre-clinical studies at annual conference of American Society of Hematology marks an important milestone for development of NPIL's oncology compound." The ASH Annual Meeting is a forum for physicians and researchers to hear latest developments in hematology.Nicholas Piramal had also entered into a drug discovery collaboration or two cancer molecules with MSD Pharmaceuticals, the Indian arm of global drug major Merck & Company. Earlier the company had been granted a patent in South Africa for its Cyclin-Dependent Kinase (CDK) inhibitors, another agent helpful in cancer treatment drugs. The company has related national phase applications in 14 other countries. It has filed five other patent applications covering different aspects of its CDK inhibitors.
