Amarillo Biosciences Files Patent to Treat Obesity with Oral Interferon

[Metropolitanjury]

Amarillo Biosciences, Inc. (OTCBB: AMAR), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on low-dose orally administered interferon as a treatment for a variety of conditions, today announced that a patent has been filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on the oral use of interferon to treat obesity.
The company recently conducted a review of clinical data from four studies that it had conducted wherein 582 women were treated for autoimmune diseases or fibromyalgia syndrome over three to six months with one of 5 different low daily doses of oral interferon or placebo. This review found that a significantly greater proportion of women given two specific doses of oral interferon experienced at least a 5% weight loss, compared to the women given placebo. This surprising benefit occurred in the women given oral interferon without a significant increase in adverse events.
The World Health Organization predicts that by 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese. In the U.S. and Canada, half of all adults are likely to be obese within eight years, with only one in five people of healthy weight. The market for weight-loss drugs in the U.S., Europe and Japan totaled around US$600 million in 2005, and is expected to rise globally to approximately $2 billion by 2010.
"While we clearly need to conduct additional studies to establish the efficacy of low-dose oral interferon as a weapon against the growing obesity pandemic, the filing of this patent could be enormously valuable to Amarillo Biosciences in the long term," said Dr. Peter Mueller, COO, ABI. "We will continue to focus our resources on our ongoing clinical studies, especially on chronic cough in COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), but believe that this recent patent filing is a substantial addition to our Intellectual Property portfolio."

Ms. Bobby Aanand, Metropolitan Jury.