Christmas may have come early for Biotron and its HIV cure

HIV-cure hopeful Biotron (ASX:BIT) says new analyses of its lead drug candidate have yielded a sheaf of new intellectual property.

The company completed a phase 2 clinical trial into its flagship drug BIT225 on HIV, which yielded positive results and sent the share price up almost 750 per cent.

Its flagship drug was “having a unique effect in patients, over and above viral suppression seen with current antiretroviral drugs” in phase 2 trials of patients with HIV-1, the most common and infectious variety of HIV.

Biotron boss Dr Michelle Miller said at the time the test results were “a major step to the ultimate goal of curing HIV-1 infection”.

There hasn’t been much of a peep from the company until today: the company is focused on “commercialisation activities and setting up technology for phase 3 and beyond”, it recently told shareholders.

Today Biotron said it continued to investigate the way the drug worked in creating immunological changes when dealing with the HIV virus, data that it says will be presented at a major conference in Boston, in March next year.

Biotron has filed two new patent applications expanding the use of BIT225 as it progresses the drug to a phase 3 trial.

In other ASX health news:

Neuren Pharmaceuticals (ASX:NEU) has been given a new patent by the European Patent Office over its NNZ-2591 drug to treat neurodevelopmental disorders. The patent will expire in July 2034. Neuren is developing NNZ-2591 to treat three debilitating childhood disorders for which currently there are no approved drug therapies. The new patent is titled “Neuroprotective bicyclic compounds and methods for their use in treating autism spectrum disorders and neurodevelopmental disorders”.