Breast cancer screening and diagnostic company BCAL Diagnostics’ (ASX:BDX) Australian Patent entitled “Diagnostic signature” was accepted by IP Australia and is expected to be granted to the company.
The patent covers methods and lipids that together form important elements of the Company’s BREASTEST technology.
This is the first BCAL-developed patent to be accepted, which arises from the Company’s first patent family. BCAL requested accelerated examination of the patent in Australia to strengthen the IP protection of BCAL’s proprietary blood test technology, prior to BREASTEST commercial launch. The patent is due to expire on 10 May 2043, providing IP protection for the technology through to this date.
The company has also filed national phase applications for this first patent family in jurisdictions that align with expected major markets for BREASTEST, which includes the United States, Canada, Japan, China and Europe.
BCAL anticipates that the successful examination of the claims in this patent family in Australia provides confidence of similarly successful examinations in the selected jurisdictions with regards to novelty and inventiveness.
BCAL now has two BCAL-developed patent families that have been filed internationally via the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). BCAL submitted the PCT filing for the second BCAL-developed patent family on 31 October 2024. This is expected to be published in the next six months.
These filings build on BCAL’s existing portfolio of in-licensed patents that includes 23 granted patents and four pending patents across jurisdictions including the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan and multiple jurisdictions within Europe.
“The acceptance of this patent is a crucial step in BCAL's journey to bring BREASTEST to the global market, representing a large amount of research and development that BCAL has undertaken over many years,” CEO, Shane Ryan, said.
“Building layers of IP protection around our technology is a key priority for us as it underpins our core commercialisation strategy and competitive advantage as we progress towards providing an innovative, novel diagnostic tool for breast cancer.”