Cannabidiol (CBD) receives Notice of Allowance for EU patent for the prevention and treatment of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD)

On the 2^nd of October 2019, the European Patent Office has issued a Notice of Allowance for EU Patent for the use of cannabidiol (CBD, a non-psychoactive component of cannabis with immunosuppressive properties) for the prevention and treatment of acute graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD).¹ There are currently no approved therapies for the prevention and very few licensed drugs for the treatment of aGvHD. Therefore, the development of efficient therapies to prevent and treat aGvHD is a major goal of allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.²

The company has stated that the new, proprietary CBD product which is an oral formulation in olive oil, that was designed to overcome previous issues of poor oral bioavailability and stability, has the potential to be used as a treatment option for bone marrow transplant recipients who are at high risk of developing aGvHD.¹ CBD has previously been granted orphan drug designation by both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA), and the results for the phase II study (NCT03840512) were previously covered by the GvHD hub.