Adocia is Extending its Intellectual Property to New Formulations of Monoclonal Antibodies

Adocia, a biotech company specialized in the formulation of therapeutic proteins for the treatment of diabetes and chronic wounds, announces today that it has filed another three patent applications covering new formulations of monoclonal antibodies.

More specifically, these patent applications relate to original formulations that facilitate the subcutaneous administration of antibodies, as well as innovative formulations that reduce antibody aggregation.

Monoclonal antibodies are therapeutic proteins that are effective in treating numerous chronic diseases: cancer, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis and other inflammatory diseases. At present, these proteins are mostly administered intravenously.

Subcutaneous administration is now the preferred method as it makes patients’ lives easier and reduces the costs of treatment. This mode of administration, however, requires a highly-concentrated formulation of monoclonal antibodies. These have a high viscosity and create problems when it comes to administration with subcutaneous injection systems.

Two of the patent applications filed by Adocia relate to innovative formulations that efficiently reduce the viscosity of concentrated antibody solutions.

In a third application, Adocia is seeking patent protection for a new, simple and effective means of reducing antibody aggregation in both concentrated and diluted solutions. The regulatory authorities in the United States (FDA) and Europe (EMA) are more demanding, since these aggregates can be immunogenic and can result in the treatment being halted.

“We have clearly identified the specific problems that these proteins pose for the pharmaceutical industry,” said Olivier Soula, Adocia’s research director. “We think our innovative formulations provide effective, low-cost solutions to these problems. We are currently presenting the new formulations to a large number of pharmaceutical companies, who are showing considerable interest in them.”

Adocia is already involved in two collaborations with biopharmaceutical companies and intends to enter into more.

“Adocia is continuing to innovate in major pharmaceutical industry applications,” said the company’s president and CEO, Gerard Soula. “The monoclonal antibody market represents a major opportunity for us, since it was worth USD 45 billion in 2011 and is expected to reach USD 58 billion in 2016.”