InMed Pharmaceuticals Inc. (IMLFF) Files PCT Patent Application for the Treatment of Pain with Cannabinoids

InMed Pharmaceuticals Inc. (“InMed” or the “Company”) (TSX:IN; OTCQX:IMLFF), a fully integrated, cannabinoid-based biopharmaceutical company that leverages its proprietary platform technologies to develop novel therapeutics for the treatment of diseases with high unmet medical needs, today announced that it has filed a Patent Cooperation Treaty (“PCT”) application pertaining to the Company’s INM-405 program and other unique compositions as cannabinoid-based topical therapies for the treatment of pain, which is an important step in protecting the Company’s intellectual and commercial property. The patent application, entitled “Methods and Composition for the Treatment of Pain with Cannabinoids” is designed to provide protection of the Company’s INM-405 program in over 150 different countries including the United States and claims a priority date from September 22, 2017(PCT/CA202018/051194).

Dr. Eric Hsu, Ph.D., InMed’s Vice President of Preclinical Research and Development commented, “While there are numerous pharmaceutical products to treat both acute and chronic pain, the increase in the number of prescriptions for the opioid class of products (oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, methadone, fentanyl, etc.) has led to concerns as these products can be highly addictive and have damaging side effects, including death.” According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since 1999, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids (including prescription opioids and heroin) quadrupled, as have the number of prescriptions for opioids, yet there has been no increase in the amount of pain reported in the general population.  Thus, there is a need to find alternative treatments for chronic and severe pain that are non-addictive and have limited side effects. “InMed is researching the potential of non-THC (THC is a psychoactive ingredient in cannabis) cannabinoids to treat pain using a proprietary topical formulation,” Dr. Hsu continued.

“There remains a significant need in the field of analgesia for a product that can treat pain via a topical route of administration, which would reduce systemic exposure and any associated side effects,” said Dr. Sazzad Hossain, Chief Scientific Officer of InMed Pharmaceuticals and a co-inventor on the patent. “InMed’s focus on non-THC cannabinoids further reduces concerns regarding addiction, a key concern in pain management.”

InMed’s study results were published in the European Journal of Pain in July 2017 and highlighted the topical application of THC to successfully treat peripheral pain. The foundation of this patent is the unreported data on non-THC cannabinoids and their ability to modulate pain. The patent cites a range of cannabinoids, alone or in combination, applied topically to treat various types of pain – muscle, nerve, arthritis-induced joint pain, etc.

The PCT is an international patent law treaty, which provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its member states. There are 151 member countries within the PCT, enabling near-global patent coverage through successful patent prosecution in the U.S., Japan, Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, Brazil, Russia, India, as well as many others.