Centrose LLC, a company focused on “making drugs better” through the use of novel sugar chemistry, announced in a press release that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued another patent (7,479,385) that the company exclusively licensed through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).
The patent entitled “SUGAR KINASES WITH EXPANDED SUBSTRATE SPECIFICITY” is a piece of CarboConnect, a platform owned by Centrose and used to discover better drugs.
The National Science Foundation has been funding a joint effort between the University of Wisconsin and Centrose aimed at optimizing this promising drug enhancement platform.
The invention that led to issuance of this new patent was discovered by Centrose co-founder and UWMadison Professor Jon Thorson, funded by the National Institutes of Health and initially published in the prestigious journal Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003.
In order to manufacture multiple drug leads in a cost effective manner, new enzymes were created that place activating phosphates onto a variety of specialized sugars. Once activated, the sugars can then be attached to drugs in an effort to enhance their characteristics.
Centrose uses CarboConnect to enhance drugs through specialized sugar attachment. Sugars are abundant biological molecules that are involved in energy storage, transport, and structural support.
They are also involved in biological processes such as immune system function, fertilization, blood clotting, and stem-cell development. Sugars on the surfaces of proteins and cells can also act as signals that help guide cell-to-cell recognition and adhesion. Sugars attached to a drug can enhance its properties, including potency, stability, solubility, and/or distribution.
The ease of which CarboConnect creates enhanced drugs with specialized sugars is allowing Centrose to discover its own drugs and is helping its partners enhance their drugs.
“This latest patent is just another piece of what we believe to be a very valuable platform” Centrose CEO James Prudent said.
“CarboConnect is allowing us to quickly enhance such a wide variety of drugs that we have even decided to begin looking for potential partners that would like to enhance their own lead candidates,” he concluded.
SOURCE:AGIPNEWS
