20 September 2017
PureTech Health plc
PureTech Health Notes US Patent Issuance Broadly Covering Methods of Assessing Mental and Physical Condition from Human Speech
PureTech Health plc ("PureTech Health" or the "Company", LSE: PRTC), an advanced, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, is pleased to note that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued U.S. Patent No. 9,763,617 for its Sonde vocal biomarkers programme. The patent broadly covers methods of assessing a mental or physical condition of a subject, using phonetic structures, or phones, extracted from speech audio waveforms. The issued patent is exclusively licensed under an agreement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and provides coverage through at least 2032.
"This newly issued patent represents, to the best of our knowledge, the only coverage for novel vocal biomarkers that have been demonstrated to enhance vocal analysis performance for assessment of a broad range of diseases," said Jim Harper, PhD, PureTech Health Vocal Biomarker Programme Lead. "Issuance of this patent strengthens our leading intellectual property portfolio in the emerging field of acoustic voice analysis for health, and it provides validation of our novel vocal biomarkers technology for the assessment of mental and physical conditions."
The patented technology, created by a team at MIT Lincoln Laboratory led by Thomas Quatieri, PhD, enables analysis of subtle - yet quantifiable - changes in the voice to improve automated measures of important aspects of an individual's health. Pilot studies using the exclusively licensed technology have also demonstrated the potential to detect and objectively measure symptoms in a range of important conditions including depression, mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), concussion, cognitive impairment and Parkinson's Disease. The vocal biomarkers programme (Sonde) has been integrating and extending this technology for analysis of an individual's voice on commonly-owned devices. Testing of the Sonde technology in over a thousand subjects has demonstrated the potential to effectively screen and monitor for disease using only a few seconds of voice. The Sonde technology is being developed to enable disease-associated features of speech to be measured without capturing the contents of speech, therefore protecting privacy.
About PureTech Health
PureTech Health (PureTech Health plc, PRTC.L) is an advanced, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel medicines targeting serious diseases that result from dysfunctions in the nervous, immune, and gastrointestinal systems (brain-immune-gut or the "BIG" axis), which together represent the adaptive human systems. PureTech Health is at the forefront of understanding and addressing the biological processes and crosstalk associated with the BIG axis. By harnessing this emerging field of human biology, the Company is pioneering new categories of medicine with the potential to have great impact on people with serious diseases. PureTech Health is advancing a rich pipeline of innovative therapies that includes two pivotal or registration studies expected to read out in 2017, multiple human proof-of-concept studies and a number of early clinical and pre-clinical programmes. PureTech's rich research and development pipeline has been advanced in collaboration with some of the world's leading scientific experts, who along with PureTech's team of biopharma pioneers, entrepreneurs and seasoned Board, identify, invent, and clinically de-risk new medicines. With this experienced team pursuing cutting edge science, PureTech Health is building the biopharma company of the future focused on improving and extending the lives of people with serious disease. For more information, visit www.puretechhealth.com or connect with us on Twitter @puretechh.
Forward Looking Statement
This press release contains statements that are or may be forward-looking statements, including statements that relate to the company's future prospects, developments and strategies. The forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance and achievements to differ materially from current expectations, including, but not limited to, those risks and uncertainties described in the risk factors included in the regulatory filings for PureTech Health plc. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions regarding the present and future business strategies of the company and the environment in which it will operate in the future. Each forward-looking statement speaks only as at the date of this press release. Except as required by law and regulatory requirements, neither the company nor any other party intends to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Contact:
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PureTech Health |
FTI Consulting |
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Allison Mead Talbot +1 617 651 3156 [email protected] |
Ben Atwell, Rob Winder +44 (0) 20 3727 1000 |
