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news.BioCurex, a biotechnology company, has announced that the Australian Patent Office has issued a notice of acceptance for a divisional application of its original patent filing. This is said to be the first patent awarded to BioCurex for the development of therapeutic applications of its RECAF technology.
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The original filing contained claims related to both diagnostics and therapeutics. During the reviewing process, the mixed nature of the claims resulted in a split (technically known as a divisional application) of the claims in two separate patent files while maintaining the original date.
The diagnostic patent application was granted by the Australian Patent Office before and now, the divisional containing the claims for therapeutic applications have also been approved.
BioCurex has proprietary technology on the uses of a molecule called RECAF that is present on the surface and inside cancer cells – though which are mostly absent from healthy cells as well as benign tumor cells. Cancer cells release some RECAF into the blood stream and this has allowed the company to develop a blood test for cancer that detects approximately 90% of patients with malignancies at the standard specificity of 95% (5% false positives).
The presence of RECAF also on the surface of malignant cells allows for the specific targeting of a cancer. That is, there is no collateral damage to healthy cells known as ‘side effects’ produced by traditional chemotherapy, the company said.
BioCurex has already secured licenses for its diagnostic tests with Abbott Labs (ABT) and Inverness Medical Innovations (IMA) and is currently working on therapeutic applications, an initiative that will be largely expanded once the diagnostic applications are marketed.