Copenhagen, 12 June 2014 – Zealand Pharma A/S (“Zealand”) (NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen: ZEAL) informs that it has been notified that a Written Decision of the European Patent Office (EPO) Opposition Division has been published in the European Patent Register upholding Zealand’s European patent (EP1877435) covering GLP-2 analogues following a challenge by a US-based, NASDAQ listed biotech company. The EPO Opposition Division in Munich categorically rejected all grounds of the opposition and Zealand’s patent claims were found to be valid in their originally granted form.
The GLP-2 analogue patent covers the Zealand invented peptide therapeutic elsiglutide (in Phase II development for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced diarrhea under a license agreement with Helsinn Healthcare SA, which is responsible for the clinical development of the product) and also covers ZP1848 (a Zealand proprietary peptide therapeutic ready for Phase II development) as well as a range of back-up GLP-2 peptide analogues.
The Written Decision of the EPO Opposition Division follows oral proceedings which were held on 13th March 2014 at the EPO in Munich and is now available in the European Patent Register. More information can be found on: https://register.epo.org/application?number=EP06727006 .
David Solomon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Zealand, said: “We are obviously pleased that our patent position is robust enough to achieve such status. Careful management of our portfolio of IP rights has high priority as part of our ongoing efforts to maintain and augment the value of our pipeline and of our leading position and expertise in the discovery, design and development of novel peptide medicines.”
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