Prima BioMed Announces Granting of Patent Number US 9,244,059 Eentitled Cytotoxic Anti-LAG-3 Monoclonal Antibody and its Use in the Treatment or Prevention of Organ Transplant Rejection and Autoimmune Disease'

Prima BioMed Ltd PBMD ("Prima", the "Company") announces the granting of patent number US 9,244,059 entitled "Cytotoxic anti-LAG-3 monoclonal antibody and its use in the treatment or prevention of organ transplant rejection and autoimmune disease" by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The patent relates to Prima's IMP731 antibody (originally developed by Immutep).The granted claims provide protection for specific sequences of the antibody and its use in depleting LAG-3 + T cells by complement dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) and antibody-dependent cell cytotoxicity (ADCC). Rights for the development of the IMP731 antibody were granted in December 2010 to GSK who have commenced first-in-human clinical trials of a proprietary antibody (GSK2831781) derived from IMP731. About IMP731 and GSK2831781 IMP731 and GSK2831781 are designed to specifically deplete potentially pathogenic, recently activated, LAG-3 expressing T cells which are enriched at the disease site i