Puretech Health's Vedanta granted key US patent, analysts bullish

The US government granted a patent to PureTech subsidiary Vedanta BioScience for its Clostridium live bacterial strains, triggering a $2m milestone payment from Janssen Biotech.

Patent No. 9,415.079 ran until at least 2031 and broadly covered pharmaceutical compositions of Clostridium live bacterial strains, which were exclusively licensed to Vedanta BioScience under an agreement with the University of Tokyo.

Puretech had a 75% stake in Vedanta.

Tuesday's decision marked a milestone in Vedanta's on-going collaboration with Janssen Biotech to develop a product candidate for inflammatory bowel disease, trigerring the $2m payment.

Daphne Zohar, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at PureTech, said: "We believe that the issuance of this patent puts us in an intellectual property leadership position in the microbiome space. We're pleased to receive this patent with broad, fundamental claims on key compositions."

In a research note issued on 16 August, Numis analysts Stefan Hamill, Paul Cuddon and Sally Taylor described Vedanta as a "hidden gem" in Puretech's portfolio, given its pioneer status in the microbiome therapy space.

Both VE202, targeting inflammatory bowel disease, and VE303, targeting infectious disease, were expected in the clinic in the first half of 2017, Numis said.

The broker reiterated its 'buy' stance and 206p target price.

As of 14:24 BST stock in PureTech was up by 3.33% to 155.25p, just below its 52-week high of 170.50p.