New York-based Q BioMed Inc., a biotechnology acceleration company, announced today a partnership with Sphaera Pharma to develop a new and proprietary analog of QBM-001 for pediatric developmental nonverbal disorder.

"The goal of our collaboration with Sphaera Pharma is to put the patient first, especially since QBM-001 targets a rare subset of toddlers that become non- or minimally verbal for the rest of their lives," said Denis Corin, CEO of Q BioMed.

Sphaera Pharma will employ its proprietary and patented platform to produce a novel analog that aims to reduce or eliminate potential side effects and can reduce the amount of product a toddler needs to take on a daily basis.

"Sphaera Pharma's platform has had great success by providing improved safety and efficacy profile for drugs being developed by biopharma companies," said Dr. Sundeep Dugar, CEO of Sphaera Pharma. "Being able to employ our technology to ensure a safer product that could allow these toddlers to speak is inspiring to our whole team."

Preclinical testing of the new analog is currently underway and a final product is scheduled to be ready by the middle of October, putting Q BioMed on a path to file an IND towards the end of 2017 or the beginning of 2018.

The proprietary analog will also allow Q BioMed to apply for a global composition of matter patent for QBM-001, while still ensuring Q BioMed can pursue the 505(b)2 regulatory pathway in the US to ensure toddlers can possibly benefit from QBM-001 as soon as possible.

Q BioMed acquired a license to QBM-001 from ASDERA LLC in April of 2017.

There are approximately 20,000 new cases of pediatric developmental nonverbal disorder in the USA each year and a similar amount in Europe. The majority of the children are diagnosed as toddlers and fall within the autism and epilepsy spectrum disorders. Individually, the economic costs for toddlers that become non- or minimally verbal is ten million on average per person over their life. Collectively, an estimated 200 billion dollarsis spent yearly on individuals who have become nonverbal in the USA. If QBM-001 is effective, not all individuals who become nonverbal will benefit from QBM-001, but we believe that testing from a trained specialists and blood tests, coupled with genetic testing can identify a targeted population that will have a higher likelihood of responding to our treatment.

Sphaera Pharma is an integrated drug discovery and development organization led by pharma and biotech professionals. With its global presence in India, Singapore and the US, Sphaera aims to bridge innovation, resources and expertise in a collaborative model to develop novel therapies.

Q BioMed Inc. is a biomedical acceleration and development company. We are focused on licensing and acquiring undervalued biomedical assets in the healthcare sector. Q is dedicated to providing these target assets strategic resources, developmental support, and expansion capital to ensure they meet their developmental potential, so that successful drug candidates may reach patients in need?.