Phylogica (ASX:PYC), developer of a intracellular drug delivery platform technology, has announced it has been granted a further US patent (US 2014/0141452 A1) covering the identification of Phylomers with the ability to enter specific endothelial cells in the brain.
"Delivering cargoes into the brain endothelial cells is a first step towards developing better medicines for neurological conditions of the central nervous system," said the company.
Discovering and developing medicines that target the brain is significantly impeded by the blood brain barrier, and more specifically, by brain endothelial cells resistant to foreign molecules.
"We have now shown that brain endothelial cells are accessible to Phylogica’s Phylomers and that these peptides could be candidates for delivering drug cargoes into the brain," the company added.
"The identification of Phylomers with the potential to cross the blood brain barrier comes from the early work of Phylogica with then pharmaceutical partner Roche, and was a precursor to development of the Company’s next generation Functional Penetrating Peptide (FPP) technology platform."
According to CEO Stephanie Unwin, “Phylogica is developing a matrix of Phylomer classes that penetrate diverse cell types and carry different drug cargos. Importantly, many of the Phylomers described here showed significant specificity for brain endothelial cells, which raises two interesting points. First, cell specificity is important because it potentially reduces dosing requirements and toxicity. And second, by combining a cell-specific FPP with a cargo that enables gene editing or that binds a disease target, it may be possible to develop very effective disease-specific therapies. In the near term, The Company will continue to assess the properties of these patented Phylomers for further validation of cell penetration and cargo delivery.”