Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

[olden_grumpini]

Ipix bought Brilacidin less than 10 years ago.

I’ve written about the brilacidin patents before. This time I’ll try to be more specific. If you follow the trail and read the source documents you might better understand why some are skeptical of the commercial prospects for brilacidin and IPIX.

To start with, IPIX didn’t buy and doesn’t own brilacidin. Brilacidin was developed by Polymedix under a 2003 Patent License Agreement between Polymedix and The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. IPIX (then CTIX) acquired these rights in 2013 when the Polymedix assets were purchased from bankruptcy court.

That's an important distinction because the UPenn patent license agreement includes sublicense fees, royalties, and other covenants. The license agreement also includes termination clauses and a defined expiration:

5.1     Term. This Agreement, unless sooner terminated as provided in this Agreement, shall expire upon the expiration of the last to expire or become abandoned of any issued Penn Patent Rights.

The question now becomes: What exactly did IPIX get when they assumed these rights and when does the last patent expire?

The CEO spelled this out in a 2014 response to a letter from the SEC. The response includes an inventory of “Intellectual Property Acquired from Polymedix”. [This response also includes the much-discussed lease extension in case anyone is curious about that.]

To the inventory we go!

“Brilacidin, and related compounds” is identified as “1” in the Categories. Everything looks fine and you will see patent expiration dates as far out as 2033. However, when you get to the bottom of the inventory you will find a footnote that reads: “(1) Patent rights obtained pursuant to a license agreement with the University of Pennsylvania”. Back to the top. Now go through the inventory again and find everything with a “(1)”.

Here are the documents referenced in my post.
2003 Patent License Agreement between Polymedix and The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
2014 SEC response that includes the list of of “Intellectual Property Acquired from Polymedix”.