Exopharm (ASX:EX1) has been granted its first patent for its Ligand – based Exosome Affinity Purification (LEAP) technology from Russia.
LEAP co-inventor and Exopharm CEO, Dr Ian Dixon, said the grant of this patent is a constructive signal to the prosecution of the related patent family in the other eleven jurisdictions where the patent applications are progressing through national phases.
This includes the United States wherein a successful Fast Track application has been approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office, resulting in expedited examination and the prospects for early grant in that jurisdiction.
The company has received advice of ‘grant’ by the Russian Patent Office for the patent entitled ‘Methods and compositions for purification or isolation of microvesicles and exosomes’, numbered 2748234, with an expiry date of 22 December 2037. Exopharm was able to address all concerns raised by the Russian office resulting in the granting of all claims applied for in the original application.
“This is an incredibly important result for Exopharm,” Dr Dixon said. “For the first time, our broad claims around the novel use of chromatography for exosome purification have been granted at the country-level. These claims are the same we are actively progressing in key markets across North America, Europe and Asia.”
The granted patent covers a core Exopharm technology that enables the efficient exosome extraction and purification needed to manufacture exosome-based medications at clinical and then pharmaceutical grade and scale.
“Our exosome technology platform enables our partners and licensees to achieve commercial scale manufacturing. From the clinical validation of the safety and scalability of LEAP through our recent human trial, to the technology transfer efforts we are making with prospective licensees, all signs point to LEAP as the standout purification approach for exosome medicines,” says Deputy CEO and Chief Commercial Officer, Dr Chris Baldwin.
Exopharm (ASX:EX1) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company using exosomes to deliver a new class of transformative medicines and generate revenue from multiple partnership deals. Exosomes are seen by the Biopharma industry as a highly differentiated platform with the potential to enhance tissue delivery for a variety of payloads like mRNA and proteins – part of the global market for drug delivery systems which is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5% and valued at around US$170 billion in 2021.
For some medicines, exosomes are an alternative and superior means for delivery inside the body, alongside technologies such as lipid nanoparticles (LNP), cell penetrating peptides, viral vectors and liposomes.
Exopharm’s LEAP technology solves the challenge of purifying clinical-grade exosomes at large scale and low cost.
Exopharm also has two exclusive proprietary technologies that allow advanced customisation of exosomes – the LOAD technology improves loading of nucleic medicines into exosomes and the EVPS technology allows exosomes to be directed towards selected cell types.
Exopharm uses variations and combinations of LOAD and EVPS to enable its Biopharma partners to improve delivery of their drug candidates and help them design and test new exosome medicines aimed at treating a wide scope of medical problems including neurological disease, infectious disease, cancer, and fibrosis.