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Imugene (ASX:IMU) has announced its receipt of a new patent in China.
The Chinese regulator – Asia’s largest pharmaceutical market – has approved a patent for Imugene’s oncolytic virotherapy drug CF33.
Oncolytic virotherapy relates to a high-tech fashion of treating cancer theorised by some to be, one day, widely practicable.
The practice includes using special types of viruses that infect and break down cancer cells while leaving non-cancerous cells in the body untouched.
While it’s far more complicated than that, this is the basic premise behind the research that could one day pose a far cheaper route for cancer treatment.
The general theory is that the viruses could be used in tandem with other treatments to improve overall efficacy and even reduce the lengths of time patients would be required to take more hardcore drugs, namely, chemo.
CF33, an Imugene oncolytic virus contender, now has patent recognition through developed Asia in Japan and South Korea, and now China.
CF33 includes Imugene’s well-known VAXINIA (CF33-hNIS) and CHECKvacc (CF33-hNIS-antiPDL1.)
Imugene has described CF33 as “chimeric” poxvirus – referencing the Greek mythological creature part lion, part goat, part snake – developed at the City of Hope.
IMU shares last at 11cps.
