Major Chinese breakthrough for pSivida - patent granted

May 9 2005

Global nanotechnology company pSivida Limited has announced that it has been granted its first patent in China.

This first patent grant in China is important as China has the highest incidence of primary liver cancer in the world with 345,844 cases in 2002 and is a logical target market for BrachySil. The potential lower cost of the Chinese registration pathway and the vast need of BrachySil like products make China an important commercial target.

pSivida is currently in exploratory discussions with commercialisation partners for the Chinese market for its lead product BrachySil and is investigating the optimum regulatory process to launch this product in China. It is expected that pSivida would enter into a supply agreement with a local distributor responsible for obtaining regulatory approval, sales and marketing. pSivida Managing Director Gavin Rezos said, “China is a massive market offering pSivida significant opportunities for commercial expansion. In recent years China has opened its ‘commercial doors’ to many western products, healthcare being no exception. Although our main short term interest is to launch BrachySil in China, we believe other products in the drug delivery arena will also be good candidates for this rapidly growing market.” Chinese Patent Number ZL 99807447.0 provides protection for silicon implants comprising tissue compatible biodegradable silicon for drug delivery. This invention was based on the demonstration in model systems, that long term BioSilicon implants lack toxicology and degrade in the body in a controllable manner. It also claims the loading of BioSilicon implants of varying porosity and structure with different drugs. The pSivida Intellectual Property portfolio consists of 26 patent families, 29 granted patents and over 80 patent applications.

Products protected by patents and patent applications owned by pSivida include materials comprising bioactive, resorbable and biocompatible silicon that are of value in the fabrication of new generations of intelligent drug delivery devices, orthopaedic implants and intelligent diagnostic tools.

http://www.psivida.com/