Response Biomedical Receives European Patent Notice of Allowance for Key Component of Immunoassay Intellectual Property
VANCOUVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Response Biomedical Corporation (TSX: RBM, OTCBB: RPBIF) announced today that the Company has received a Notice of Allowance from the European Patent Office for the patent entitled “Sensitive Immunochromatographic Assay”, referred to as the “Fong Patent”. This critical patent protects key aspects of Response Biomedical’s lateral flow immunoassays conducted with the proprietary RAMP® testing platform.
“Our market expansion plans, in conjunction with our key partners, will have significant focus on the European Union. We expect to see RAMP® continue to set new performance standards in rapid diagnostic testing by providing lab quality information in minutes.”
“The ‘Fong Patent’ is a pivotal piece of our intellectual property portfolio and we are very pleased with the European Patent Office’s (EPO) decision to grant our claims in support of our technology platform,” said S. Wayne Kay, Chief Executive Officer. “Our market expansion plans, in conjunction with our key partners, will have significant focus on the European Union. We expect to see RAMP® continue to set new performance standards in rapid diagnostic testing by providing lab quality information in minutes.”
The Fong Patent describes various methods to improve assay performance through the correction of intrinsic variability in lateral flow assays, which provides more precise results than typical lateral flow methods. This patent has been issued in the United States and Australia and is pending in China, Hong Kong, Japan and Canada. Recently the Company announced it had received further continuation of the Fong Patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the competitive claims, significantly expanding the U.S. intellectual property to allow coverage for small molecules. The Company is currently seeking additional partners to develop products covered under its portfolio of patent protection.
About Response Biomedical
Response Biomedical develops, manufactures and markets rapid on-site diagnostic tests for use with its RAMP® Platform for clinical and environmental applications. RAMP® represents a new paradigm in diagnostics that provides high sensitivity and reliable information in minutes. It is ideally suited to both point of care testing and laboratory use.
The RAMP® system consists of a Reader and single-use disposable test cartridges, and has the potential to be adapted to more than 250 medical and non-medical tests currently performed in laboratories. RAMP® clinical tests are commercially available for the early detection of heart attack, congestive heart failure, influenza and RSV through our commercial partners, Roche and 3M Health Care respectively.
In the non-clinical market, RAMP® Tests are currently provided for the environmental detection of West Nile Virus, and Biodefense applications including the rapid on-site detection of anthrax, smallpox, ricin and botulinum toxin. Several other product applications are under development.
Response has achieved CE Marking for its Reader and clinical tests and its Quality Management System is registered to ISO 13485: 2003 and ISO 9001: 2008.
Response Biomedical is a publicly-traded company, listed on the TSX under the trading symbol "RBM" and quoted on the OTC Bulletin Board under the symbol "RPBIF". For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.responsebio.com.
