LOS ANGELES, CA — (Marketwired) — 08/19/13 — (OTCQB: MMRF) (“MMR”), a leading provider of (PHRs), storage solutions and electronic document management and imaging systems for , today announced that as a result of China-s participation in the Patent Prosecution Highway Program and the issuance of patents to MMR for its anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies in the U.S., the Company has received confirmation from China of the filing on August 15, 2013 of a divisional Chinese patent application, No. 200780051557.6 entitled “Antibodies and Methods For Making and Using Them.” The filing is part of MMRGlobal-s plan to expand the scope of its biotech assets and other intellectual property, in particular, the Company-s issued U.S. Patent No. 8,465,741 directed at its , which has also been granted in Mexico and allowed in . The filing occurred a week prior to the BioProcess International Conference and Exhibition in Shanghai, China, scheduled to be held August 20-21, where Dr. Yajun Guo, formerly a professor at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in San Diego, will be a featured keynote speaker. Dr. Guo participated in research and development of the antibodies for Sidney Kimmel and Favrille, Inc., a San Diego-based biotechnology company MMR acquired through a reverse merger in January 2009. The patented anti-CD20 antibodies and associated research materials were maintained on behalf of Favrille for a significant period of time at Sidney Kimmel until they were moved to MMR.
MMRGlobal CEO Robert H. Lorsch met with Dr. Guo in China where the two discussed the ownership of MMR-s biotech IP, possible strategic opportunities, and Dr. Guo-s efforts to use the Company-s anti-CD20 antibodies to develop low-cost alternatives for treatments like Rituxan® in connection with non-Hodgkin-s lymphoma and other cancers widely considered too expensive for China-s 400 million middle-class patients who pay out of pocket. The Company-s divisional patent application in China will allow it to take advantage of an international treaty to expedite receiving a Notice of Allowance of a patent in China based on the existing approval in the U.S.
The anti-CD20 antibodies were part of MMR-s pre-merger portfolio of biotech assets and other intellectual property owned by Favrille, originally spun off from the Sidney Kimmel. As previously announced, Mexico (and thereafter the U.S.) granted the first patents for the Company-s anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody assets under the title “Antibodies and Methods for Making and Using Them.” The issuance of U.S. Patent No. 8,465,741 on June 18, 2013 provided the Company with a mechanism to request expedited examination of the equivalent patent claims in various international countries. The filing of the new divisional patent application in China seeks to take advantage of this expedited process.
These patents and patent application will provide additional protection of the Company-s specific antibodies that have particular utility in fighting cancers. Additional patent applications for the Company-s antibodies are also pending in a number of other countries including Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Europe, Japan and Korea. MMR-s anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies are considered extremely important assets of the Company, the value and benefit of which are demonstrated by how these antibodies are used commercially in products like Rituxan®, an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody which is due to go off patent in 2015.
Prior to the Company-s reverse merger in 2009, Favrille had invested more than $100 million in research and development on its FavId vaccine trials and use of customized tumor cells to treat lymphoma patients and other technologies. MMR has continued to make progress in protecting the Company-s IP, including its anti-CD20 antibodies and B-Cell vaccine patents entitled “Method and Composition for Altering a B-Cell Mediated Pathology,” which relate to methods of manufacturing compositions for B-Cell vaccines used in the fight against lymphoma and potentially other forms of cancer.
Although MMRGlobal will continue working to license and otherwise exploit an extensive portfolio of biotech assets, including its anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies, and additionally, data from vaccine trials, thousands of patient tumor samples and other intellectual property including numerous worldwide patents in various stages, it remains focused on its primary health IT business. The Company has numerous patents issued or pending related to providing online medical and in more than 12 countries of commercial interest and has hundreds of additional claims either pending or published related to health information technology in the U.S. and other parts of the world.
MMRGlobal, Inc., through its wholly-owned operating subsidiary, MyMedicalRecords, Inc., provides secure and easy-to-use online Personal Health Records (“PHRs”) and electronic safe deposit box storage solutions, serving consumers, healthcare professionals, employers, insurance companies, financial institutions, retail pharmacies, and professional organizations and affinity groups. The PHR enables individuals and families to access their medical records and other important documents, such as birth certificates, passports, insurance policies and wills, anytime from anywhere using the Internet. MyMedicalRecords is built on proprietary, patented technologies to allow documents, images and voicemail messages to be transmitted and stored in the system using a variety of methods, including fax, phone, or file upload without relying on any specific electronic medical record platform to populate a user-s account. The Company-s professional offering, , is designed to give physicians- offices an easy and cost-effective solution to digitizing paper-based medical records and sharing them with patients through an integrated patient portal. Through its merger with Favrille, Inc. in January 2009, the Company acquired intellectual property biotech assets that include anti-CD20 antibodies and data and samples from its FavId/Specifid vaccine clinical trials for the treatment of B-Cell Non-Hodgkin-s lymphoma. To learn more about MMRGlobal, Inc. visit . View demos and video tutorials of the Company-s products and services at .
All statements in this press release that are not strictly historical in nature, including, without limitation, intellectual property enforcement actions, infringement claims or litigation, intellectual property licenses, and future performance, management-s expectations, beliefs, intentions, estimates or projections, constitute “forward-looking statements.” Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company-s actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some can be identified by the use of words (and their derivations) such as “need,” “possibility,” “potential,” “intend,” “offer,” “development,” “if,” “negotiate,” “when,” “begun,” “believe,” “achieve,” “will,” “estimate,” “expect,” “maintain,” “plan,” and “continue,” or the negative of these words. Actual outcomes and results of operations and the timing of selected events may differ materially from the results predicted, and any reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Such statements are necessarily based on assumptions and estimates and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those relating to the possible invalidity of the underlying assumptions and estimates and possible changes or developments in economic, business, industry, market, legal and regulatory circumstances and conditions and actions taken or omitted to be taken by third parties, including customers, suppliers, business partners, potential licensees, competitors and legislative, judicial and other governmental authorities and officials. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: unexpected outcomes with respect to intellectual property enforcement actions, claims of intellectual property infringement and general intellectual property litigation; our ability to maintain, develop, monetize and protect our patent portfolio for both the Company-s health IT and biotechnology intellectual property assets in the U.S. and internationally; the timing of milestone payments in connection with licensing our intellectual property; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships; changes in our relationships with our licensees; the risk the Company-s products are not adopted or viewed favorably by the healthcare community and consumer retail market; business prospects, results of operations or financial condition; risks related to the current uncertainty and instability in financial and lending markets, including global economic uncertainties; the timing and volume of sales and installations; the length of sales cycles and the installation process; the market-s acceptance of new product and service introductions; competitive product offerings and promotions; changes in government laws and regulations and future changes in tax legislation and initiatives in the healthcare industry; undetected errors in our products; the possibility of interruption at our data centers; risks related to third party vendors; risks related to obtaining and integrating third-party licensed technology; risks related to a security breach by third parties; risks associated with recruitment and retention of key personnel; other litigation matters; uncertainties associated with doing business internationally across borders and territories; and additional risks discussed in the Company-s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company is providing this information as of the date of this release and, except as required by applicable law, does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Michael Selsman
Public Communications Co.
(310) 922-7033
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