Lamellar happy to win orphan status

A CYSTIC fibrosis medicine being developed by Bellshill-based Lamellar Biomedical has been granted ten years of protection by the European Commission (EC).

Lamellar believes that receiving "orphan drug designation" from the EC will help the company to attract funding and development partners as well as protecting its research from competitors.

Drugs for rare diseases are called "orphans" because the small number of patients they would treat means they are often not developed by larger pharmaceutical companies.

Dr Iain McDougall, chief business officer at Lamellar, added: "We have been extremely encouraged by preclinical results and we continue to believe we are developing a therapy with the potential to offer a brand new way of treating the disease when we enter clinical trials early next year."