Prana Secures Key Patent for Parkinson's Drug PBT434 in the United States

Tallahassee, FL 11/28/11 (StreetBeat) --Prana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: PRAN) today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a Notice of Allowance for a composition of matter patent for selected 8-hydroxy quinazolinone compounds, including its lead Parkinson's Disease (PD) drug candidate, PBT434, in the United States. The patent entitled 'Neurologically Active Compounds' also covers pharmaceutical compositions containing PBT434 and selected 8-hydroxy quinazolinone compounds.

Once granted, the United States patent has a twenty year term expiring June 7, 2026. This expiry date may in the future be further extended by the application of pharmaceutical extension of term provisions of up to five years in the United States.

Geoffrey Kempler, Prana's CEO, said, "Securing granted rights to our lead PD drug candidate furthers our commercialization plans for PBT434 for which Prana was recently awarded a grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation to undertake preclinical development studies to enable human clinical trials."

PBT434 has been designed to prevent or slow the loss of the neurons of the substantia nigra that produce the chemical dopamine, the neurotransmitter that controls motor function in the brain. As a neuroprotective agent, PBT434 preserves critical interneuronal connections between the substantia nigra and the striatum (neurons which have dopamine receptors and transmit the signals to coordinate movement pathways and a variety of cognitive processes involving executive function). Experiments in two animal models of PD have shown that; in animals treated with PBT434, motor coordination and performance were significantly improved compared to untreated control animals, the characteristic accumulation of the disease associated protein alpha synuclein in the brains of PD animal models was reduced and that expression of a key genetic susceptibility factor, the antioxidant protein, DJ-1, was elevated in substantia nigra neurons.

About Prana Biotechnology Limited
Prana Biotechnology was established to commercialise research into Alzheimer's Disease and other major age-related neurodegenerative disorders. The Company was incorporated in 1997 and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in March 2000 and listed on NASDAQ in September 2002. Researchers at prominent international institutions including The University of Melbourne, The Mental Health Research Institute (Melbourne) and Massachusetts General Hospital, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, contributed to the discovery of Prana's technology.

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