Bionomics files for new epilepsy patent

Adelaide biotech Bionomics (ASX:BNM, US OTC:BMICV)) has filed a provisional patent application on a DNA diagnostic test for a benign form of epilepsy that causes seizures in early childhood.

The test, which detects variations in an ion-channel gene active in brain tissue, has been developed in collaboration with San Diego diagnostic products company Nanogen.

Bionomics has previously patented the sequence variations associated with the form of epilepsy, which causes mild seizures in the first few months of life.

Bionomics scientific advisory board member Prof Sam Berkovic, director of the Epilepsy Research Centre at the Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre, whose team conducted the family clinical research that led to the identification of the gene, said affected children had a good prognosis for remaining free of epilepsy symptoms later in life.

Bionomics' patent application has been made on the basis of a clinical study at several sites in Australia and Europe, which linked particular mutations to particular epilepsy symptoms. The results of the study will be published in a scientific journal early next year.

The company's vice-president of central nervous system research, Melbourne University researcher Dr Steven Petrou, said Bionomics and its collaborators were successfully linking mutations in specific genes to particular types of epilepsy, helping clinicians to meet the "significant medical need" to diagnose epilepsy more accurately and easily.

In the past, epilepsy has been diagnosed largely on the basis of symptoms, or on a patient's responsiveness to generic anti-epileptic drugs, often resulting in misdiagnosis or inappropriate or ineffective treatments.

Bionomics CEO Dr Deborah Rathjen said the company's research into the genetics of epilepsy was building on the value of its earlier gene discoveries, "We are now building a pipeline of proprietary diagnostic methods which we are working on bringing to the market with our commercial collaborators," she said.

Ultimately, the company aims to develop novel anti-epileptic drugs to treat specific types of epilepsy diagnosed with its DNA tests.