U.S. Patent Granted to San Diego Pharmaceutical Company
San Diego – La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company, a Biopharmaceutical company based in San Diego, has recently been granted a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a patent covering compositions of modified pectins. On its website, La Jolla Pharmaceutical states that its company is “dedicated to the development of treatments that significantly improve outcomes in patients with life-threatening diseases” and the issued patent number 8,187,642 gives the company the ability to do just that. Patent ‘642, which modifies pectin compositions and molecules, is protected until 2025.
Dr. George F. Tidmarsh, President and CEO of La Jolla Pharmaceutical stated, “We are pleased to receive this patent protection which broadens and further extends our intellectual property position for modified pectins,” and “The issuance of this patent comes at a strategically important time for us as we prepare to move forward with clinical trials of our lead compound, GCS-100, in oncology, kidney disease and organ transplant indications.”
The ability to modify pectin compositions, which this patent provides for, has the potential to “bind and sequester galectin-3” which has been linked to the responsibility of diseases in humans such as cancer. This patent could possibly help in improved solutions for these diseases.
Patent ‘642 is one of three of the pharmaceutical company’s patents that are linked to developing a reduction in cancer’s growth rate. In the technology portion of its website the company states “La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company is leveraging the unique biochemistry of the galectin family of proteins to develop innovate therapies to treat a multitude of human diseases. In particular, over-expression of galectin-3 (one member of the galectin family) has been implicated in cancer and chronic organ failure. Thus, modulation of galectin-3 activity is an attractive therapeutic target. GCS-100, La Jolla’s lead product, is a first-in-class inhibitor designed to sequester and eliminate circulating levels of galectin-3.”
