This patent, which is licensed exclusively to VistaGen by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, will expand VistaGen’s intellectual property portfolio for pluripotent stem cell culture systems that produce human cells of the endoderm lineage, including liver, lung, pancreas, parathyroid and thyroid cells.
"This important Canadian patent allowance extends our core intellectual property protection in a market that has been strategically significant to us for many years," stated Shawn K. Singh, JD, VistaGen’s chief executive officer.
"In a manner similar to our recently announced Notice of Allowance for its counterpart, U.S. Patent Application 12/836,275, this new Canadian patent allowance and our world-class differentiation and assay formulation expertise put us in a strong position to pursue additional stem cell research projects in Canada, especially innovative projects involving liver biology, customized drug metabolism assays, and pilot nonclinical studies using pancreatic beta-islet cells for drug and regenerative cell therapies for diabetes."