MALVERN, Pa., Jan. 30, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Annovis Bio, Inc. (NYSE: ANVS), a clinical-stage drug platform company developing novel therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, announced the filing of a patent application covering the use of buntanetap and its analogues for the treatment of neuropsychiatric indications. This application follows the U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/440,890 which was filed on January 24, 2023.

The patent application titled "Treatment of Mental Illness via Administration of Buntanetap and Analogues Thereof" addresses methods for treating, inhibiting, reducing, slowing, or delaying onset of mental illnesses by administration of buntanetap or its pharmaceutically acceptable salts. Buntanetap can be used alone or synergistically with effective quantities of antipsychotic agents, antidepressant agents, hallucinogenic agents, or combinations thereof.

This patent application addresses mental illnesses such as autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia, which have been shown to share similar pathological abnormalities with certain neurodegenerative diseases and include disruptions in synthesis of neurotoxic proteins, impairment of axonal transport, inflammation, and nerve cell death. Through its ability to target these mechanisms, buntanetap showed statistically significant improvements in obsessive compulsive behavior (Marble Burying Test), anxiety (Elevated Plus Maze) and fear (Fear Conditioning Test) in preclinical studies in mice.

"The ability of buntanetap to inhibit a wide range of neurotoxic proteins, as shown in our Alzheimer's and Parkinson's studies, is associated with improved mental health which opens new avenues for delaying or treating certain mental conditions," said Maria L. Maccecchini, Ph.D., Founder, President, and CEO of Annovis. "The filing of this patent application serves as a robust reinforcement of our intellectual property portfolio, bolstering our mission to bring therapeutic solutions for brain-related disorders to market, which now also include mental illness in addition to neurodegeneration diseases."

Current patents and patent applications at Annovis Bio cover the use of buntanetap for chronic and acute neurodegenerative diseases, its mechanism of action, and a novel composition of matter for a polymorph of buntanetap.

About Buntanetap
Buntanetap (formerly known as Posiphen or ANVS401) attacks neurodegeneration by reducing multiple neurotoxic proteins, thereby improving synaptic transmission and axonal transport, which is the information highway of the nerve cell. Dysfunction of synaptic transmission and axonal transport has been shown to be the cause of nerve cell degeneration and ultimately death. Unlike other PD drugs in development which attempt to remove only one toxic protein, buntanetap inhibits several toxic proteins before they can form, thereby preventing the formation of all the major neurotoxic proteins responsible for PD and AD.