Ribo Receives Granted Patents for Phase 2 HBV siRNA Asset RBD1016 in United States and Europe

Ribocure Pharmaceuticals/Suzhou Ribo Life Science Co. Ltd. (“Ribo”) announce Notice of Allowance issued respectively by US Patent Office and European Patent Office for patent applications covering the anti-hepatitis B siRNA drug RBD1016.

With the approved patents in US and Europe, and with the previous authorizations in six major countries/regions, including China and Japan, Ribo’s strategy to support the use of RBD1016 globally for treatment of Chronic Hepatitis B infection (CHB) continues to execute. Ribo holds already a strong patent portfolio for both its individual programs and its proprietary GalNAc-siRNA liver targeting platform, RIBO-GalSTAR^TM.

About RBD1016
Hepatitis B is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis B virus. Nearly 300 million people are infected worldwide with an increased risk of suffering from liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. There is a huge unmet clinical need for potent and safe treatment options for this group of patients.

The goal for treating CHB is to achieve a clinical cure (functional cure), where HBsAg (hepatitis B surface antigen) remains negative with or without the presence of anti-HBs (antibodies to hepatitis B surface antigen, HBsAb), HBV DNA is undetectable, liver biochemistry remains normal, and liver histopathology improves after stop of treatment. RBD1016 is a GalNAc-siRNA drug independently developed by Ribo based on its proprietary GalNAc-siRNA platform, targeting the X gene of hepatitis B virus. It inhibits all four HBV transcripts through the RNA interference mechanism, and can simultaneously inhibit HBV DNA replication, reduce cccDNA and integrate DNA derived HBsAg and other antigens. RBD1016 demonstrates well-tolerated safety profile in Phase I study including both healthy subjects and patients with CHB infection. RBD1016 shows a highly efficient long-acting effect of reducing the HBsAg in patients. Ribo regards RBD1016 as the best-in-class siRNA for targeting of HBV and has currently a global multicenter Phase II clinical trial in progress.