USPTO grants second patent to Angiochem's EPiC drugs

Angiochem, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company, today announced that its second patent has been granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office. Patent number 7,902,156, is entitled "Aprotinin Polypeptides for Transporting a Compound Across the Blood-Brain Barrier". This key patent covers the transport of drug compounds derived from Angiochem's Engineered Peptide Compound (EPiC) technology, including compounds that contain small molecules, peptides and proteins. EPiC drugs have the potential to efficiently and effectively cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to treat a wide range of brain diseases and brain-related disorders, many of which represent unmet medical needs including brain cancers, pain management, diabetes, obesity and neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease.

This patent represents a significant milestone in Angiochem's patent strategy. This strategy involves pursuing broad coverage to protect the EPiC platform, as well as coverage of the specific therapeutics for disease indications under development.

The patent is in force through July 2025 and represents the second umbrella patent issued to Angiochem for the development of compounds that cross the blood-brain barrier utilizing its novel EPiC technology. The first patent, U.S. patent number 7,557,182, covers EPiC drugs, including GRN1005 (formerly ANG1005) which was licensed to Geron Corp in December 2010 for the treatment of patients with primary and metastatic brain tumors.

"With these two umbrella patents we have a solid and enforceable intellectual property estate with claims through 2025," commented Jean-Paul Castaigne, MD, President and CEO of Angiochem. "Our highly versatile EPiC platform technology overcomes current limitations to the development of novel therapeutics that cross the BBB allowing effective treatments across a wide range of diseases to achieve clinically meaningful outcomes."

Source: Angiochem