GangaGen Granted New US Patent on Therapeutic Bacteriophages
Posted on: Wednesday, 4 October 2006, 09:01 CDT
OTTAWA and PALO ALTO, CA, Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- GangaGen, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing bacteriophage technology for the treatment of antibiotic resistant bacterial infections, announced today that it has received a new US patent. The patent is for the invention of "Lysin-deficient bacteriophages having reduced immunogenicity", where they can be used to destroy pathogenic bacteria, including those resistant to antibiotics.
The value of the new patent is that it creates the opportunity for phages to be used as a systemic therapeutic, that is, potentially as an injectable, in both human and veterinary medicine.
"This discovery opens the door to the therapeutic use of phages against chronic bacterial infections, both systemic and topical," said Dr. Carl Merrill, senior scientist and research specialist in bacterial infection and phage biology at National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Bacteriophages or "phages" are naturally occurring agents that target and destroy bacteria with a high degree of efficiency, and do so selectively and specifically without affecting beneficial bacteria or tissue cells.
Natural lytic phages, found in the human and general environment, are not lysine-deficient. They infect target bacteria, make multiple copies of themselves, and then break out of the bacterial cell by perforating the cell wall, using an enzyme lysine produced by the phages themselves. This process effectively explodes the bacterial cell to release the new phages to infect other bacteria. As effective as phages are in killing bacteria, this creates a risk factor in that there is loss of control over treatment dose strength.
A further potential undesirable side effect, particularly when natural lytic phages are injected to combat infection, is the creation of immunogenic reactions in the patient by having large uncontrolled amounts of phages in circulation.
By contrast, GangaGen's lysin-deficient phages do not release new phages from the killed bacteria, but still maintain their specificity and effectiveness in killing the pathogenic bacteria. Therefore, the pathogenic bacteria are killed effectively and are then removed from circulation by the body's normal defense systems without secondary effects, such as immune reactions.
GangaGen has initiated proof-of-concept studies of lysin-deficient phages in animal trials. Early results show this to be effective in the treatment of acute systemic infection, and as a promising vaccine approach.
The new patent increases the portfolio of granted and filed patents held by GangaGen and its two affiliates, GangaGen Life Sciences Inc., Ottawa, Canada and GangaGen Biotechnologies Pvt Ltd., Bangalore, India. The invention arises from work carried out by the Bangalore company and lists Dr. Janakiraman Ramachandran, Sriram Padmanabhan and Bharati Sriram as co-inventors.
It supports two earlier GangaGen U.S. patents granted in 2005 that describe the novelty of generating lysine-deficient phages and using these as an effective anti-bacterial vaccine, as well as a direct-acting bactericidal therapeutic.
About GangaGen
GangaGen, Inc. is an emerging biopharmaceutical company operating through two affiliate subsidiaries, GangaGen Biotechnologies Pvt Ltd, established in 2000 in Bangaglore, India, and GangaGen Life Sciences, established in 2002 in Ottawa, Canada. The GangaGen group works closely together to develop modern bacteriophage-based products. for the prevention and treatment of bacterial infections. The corporation has successfully developed cutting-edge patented intellectual property for a phage product pipeline to target bacterial diseases to both prevent and cure infections, including those resistant to antibiotics. The product pipeline targets bacterial infection issues in food safety and in human and animal medicine.
GangaGen
CONTACT: or to arrange for interviews, please contact: Linda Woods,inmedia Public Relations, (613) 234-7227, ext. 234, lwoods@inmedia.com; DannySullivan, inmedia Public Relations, (613) 686-5657, dsullivan@inmedia.com
Source: PRNewswire
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