Intezyne Receives Intent-to-Grant Notice from the European Patent Office

TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Intezyne today announced it has received notification the European Patent Office intends to grant a patent covering a key element of Intezyne’s breakthrough drug delivery technology, the IVECT™ Method. At the core of this technology is the IVECT micelle, a proprietary, polymeric nanoparticle designed to encapsulate and deliver best-in-class therapeutics, while limiting exposure to healthy tissues. The IVECT Method is already covered by seven additional patents both in the United States and worldwide. This wide-ranging, European patent covers technology that allows greater flexibility and versatility of the IVECT micelle, particularly with respect to the amount of hydrophobic material that can be encapsulated into this drug delivery vehicle, further bolstering Intezyne’s intellectual property portfolio.

“Historically, encapsulating highly hydrophobic drugs has proven to be a major stumbling block for the great majority of drug delivery systems”

Hybrid Block Copolymers With Mixed Stereochemistry for Encapsulation of Hydrophobic Agents
	-	Sill, K.; Skaff, H.; Breitenkamp, K.
	-	EU patent number: EP2073850
	-	Issued claims include composition of matter for Intezyne’s proprietary triblock copolymers, which utilize both D- and L-isomers in the encapsulation block.

“Historically, encapsulating highly hydrophobic drugs has proven to be a major stumbling block for the great majority of drug delivery systems,” explained Kevin Sill, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Intezyne. “The advanced technology covered by this patent protects Intezyne’s ability to encapsulate hydrophobic drugs more efficiently. Further, we have shown for the first time IVECT micelles are able to encapsulate several hydrophobic compounds that were previously intractable to delivery methods at therapeutically relevant levels.”

Intezyne is active in its efforts to prosecute its patents and protect its intellectual property in major global pharmaceutical markets. The above patent currently is being prosecuted in the United States, as well as Australia, Canada, Israel, India, Japan, Mexico, and New Zealand.

All granted and pending patent applications are wholly owned by Intezyne.

About Intezyne

Intezyne is dedicated to treating cancer better by offering a new solution to oncologists, who must balance the anti-tumor activity of best-in-class chemotherapeutics with their severe toxicities. Drawing from their expertise in polymer chemistry, the Company’s founders created the IVECT Method to limit chemotherapeutics’ anti-tumor activity to within the tumor itself, thereby sparing healthy tissues. To date, the IVECT Method has shown positive preclinical efficacy and safety profiles in multiple cancer models versus best-in-class chemotherapeutic agents. Ultimately, the IVECT Method has demonstrated preclinical proof-of-concept in a number of therapeutic and diagnostic categories, giving the Company the opportunity to monetize this asset through licensing agreements outside of Intezyne’s primary oncology focus.

About the IVECT Method

Intezyne’s IVECT Method is a unique and remarkably safe platform that has the potential to raise the bar in terms of what patients and oncologists can expect from chemotherapy. The key to this breakthrough technology is the Company’s multi-disciplinary approach, integrating polymer physics and materials science with organic chemistry, polymer chemistry, biochemistry, and biology. Intezyne can improve patient outcomes significantly by amplifying the efficacy and safety profiles of best-in-class cancer drugs, whose potency often is handicapped by nonspecific delivery outside of the tumor site, requiring higher dosing and resulting in severe toxicities. The IVECT Method has proven to be extraordinarily versatile, in terms of the diversity of materials that can be encapsulated securely, and its unique modular design confers unmatched adaptability at a minimal cost. Beyond chemotherapy, the Company has proven the IVECT Method can deliver many classes of small molecules, in addition to nucleic acids, oligopeptides, and diagnostic imaging agents.

For more information, please visit www.intezyne.com.