On May 27, 2021 SELLAS Life Sciences Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SLS) ("SELLAS" or the "Company"), a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel cancer immunotherapies for a broad range of indications, reported that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a Notice of Allowance in a patent application covering the use of galinpepimut-S (GPS), the Company’s Wilms Tumor-1 (WT1)-targeting peptide immunotherapeutic, in combination with checkpoint inhibitor therapies for treatment of WT1-expressing cancers (Press release, Sellas Life Sciences, MAY 27, 2021, View Source [SID1234580674]).

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"These new patent claims add to SELLAS’ growing intellectual property (IP) estate for GPS and continue to support the Company’s clinical studies of GPS in combination with checkpoint inhibitors in patients with advanced ovarian cancer and malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) who had exhausted their current standard therapy options," said Angelos Stergiou, President and Chief Executive Officer, SELLAS. "This additional IP protection for GPS is a major milestone as we look to further advance our clinical pipeline. We look forward to providing further data from our study of GPS in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with 2nd or 3rd line relapsed/refractory metastatic ovarian cancer, as well as the study of GPS in combination with nivolumab in relapsed/refractory MPM later this quarter."

The allowed claims of the patent application cover the use of GPS in combination with any antibody checkpoint inhibitor that blocks or inhibits programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1), such as nivolumab and pembrolizumab. The allowed claims of the patent application also cover treating, reducing the incidence of, or inducing an immune response against any WT1-expressing cancer, such as ovarian cancer and MPM.

This patent application covering the use of GPS in combination with checkpoint inhibitors will be the first granted within a patent family filed in several countries and will have a term that extends to at least 2036. The patent application is expected to be granted on June 15, 2021, as U.S. Patent No. 11,033,613.