Ichor Medical Systems issued key patent

Ichor Medical Systems today announced that it has been issued a patent that protects vital elements of the company's technology.

U.S. Patent Number 6,912,417 entitled, "Method and Apparatus for Delivery of Therapeutic Agents," is the first patent to issue from a family of applications that discloses a means to enable the commercialization of human therapies delivered by electroporation.

Electroporation uses the propagation of electric fields to greatly increase the uptake of DNA drugs by cells. Although this technique has been widely used in research laboratories, the development of clinical products based on this technology has been hindered by the lack of a simple, reliable, and effective means for procedure administration. Ichor's TriGrid Delivery System integrates several patented technologies, including that disclosed in Patent Number 6,912,417, into a simple handheld device that is designed to enable safe, efficient, and reproducible DNA drug delivery with minimal operator training. Previous patents issued to Ichor cover the means for inducing the electroporation effect at specific treatment sites.

"This patent provides Ichor with broad coverage of an invention that provides the basis for transforming electroporation from an interesting research tool to a practical and commercially viable drug delivery technology," said Drew Hannaman, Vice President -- Research and Development of Ichor Medical Systems. "Our TriGrid Delivery System allows consistent, reproducible results to be achieved with a simple administration process. That important advantage is derived from proprietary technology covered by our portfolio of patents."