BPH’s Investee Cortical Confirms Filing of New International Patent Application

Summary

• BPH’s investee Cortical has confirmed the filing of a new international patent application.
• The arising IP will be protected as appropriate throughout the commercialisation process to retain Cortical’s potent competitive position.
• Cortical’s BARM is set to be presented at the 2020 Spring Development seminar and Council of the Korean Association of Anaesthesia in July.

In a significant development, BPH Energy Limited (ASX:BPH) investee Cortical Dynamics Ltd has confirmed the filing of a new international patent application, carrying Application No. PCT/AU2020/050535. Cortical informed that the patent application has been lodged for “Apparatus and process for measuring brain activity”.

Medical device technology player, Cortical has developed a next-gen Brain Anaesthesia Response Monitor (BARM) to better monitor the effect of anaesthetic agents on patient’s brain activity, supporting anaesthetists to keep patients anaesthetised in an optimal way.

Cortical has created a comprehensive patent portfolio covering brain function monitor BARM, that provides it with a crucial patent protection across several significant brain monitoring markets.

Cortical’s Robust Patent Position

Cortical’s competitive advantage across other brain monitoring markets is underpinned by its robust patent position, encompassed by five patent families and twenty-two granted patents. All these five patent families have advanced along PCT (Patent Co-operation Treaty) path, with patents progressing into national patent applications.

Cortical’s patents cover BARM’s uniquely defined measures - Cortical Input (CI) and Composite Cortical State (CCS), that have been recognised by the world’s leading experts in anaesthesia. While CCS measures the consciousness level of the patient under anaesthetic, CI measures analgesia or pain input received by the brain.

Currently, Cortical has patents awarded in Japan, the People’s Republic of China, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Europe.

The strength of Cortical’s patents has been demonstrated several times in the past when the Company’s prior patents work were cited by various countries’ patent offices in Cortical’s later patent sequence.

As per Cortical, the arising Intellectual property (IP) will be protected as appropriate throughout the commercialisation process to retain Cortical’s potent competitive position.

BARM to be Exhibited in Korea

Cortical’s BARM is set to be presented at the 2020 Spring Development seminar and Council of the Korean Association of Anaesthesia. The Korean Anaesthetic Conference is scheduled to be held at the BEXCO Convention Hall in Busan South Korea on 24^th and 25^th July 2020.

Cortical lately notified that its Korean distributor, Globaluck will exhibit BARM at the conference. Both Globaluck and Cortical are presently in the concluding phase of the Korean regulatory approval process for BARM with the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.

To recall, Globaluck attained a certificate of approval for BARM from the KGMP (Korea Good Manufacturing Practice) in September last year.

Marking a quantum leap forward towards the advancement of BARM system, Cortical also signed Licence and Co-operation Agreement with health technology company Philips in June 2020.

BARM’s Competitive Advantage

According to Cortical, its BARM system is fundamentally different from its competitive technologies in various ways, including:

• It exhibits sensitivity to a broad range of anaesthetic and sedative agents, comprising propofol, ketamine, sevoflurane, midazolam and nitrous oxide, some of which other depth of anaesthesia monitors fail to detect.
• It detects the effects of both analgesic and hypnotic agents that no other depth of anaesthesia monitors can.
• It produces a reading in just within two seconds in comparison to 30 seconds for the leading competitor, which is a major factor in optimising anaesthesia level.
• It demonstrates a fall in awareness or sedation in completely paralysed patients.
• It provides an accurate, non-invasive and reliable means to gauge the brain state consciousness and analgesia of an anaesthetised patient during surgery, which has the potential to offer several benefits.

Notably, exceptional features associated with BARM system provide a significant competitive advantage to BPH’s investee Cortical in the brain monitoring market. The latest filing of an international patent application is further likely to strengthen Cortical’s position, potentially delivering a substantial value in future.

BPH traded at $0.021 on 3 July 2020 (As at 3:44 PM AEST).