Salipro Biotech has announced the European Patent Office has issued the patent no. 3463303, titled “Saposin lipoprotein particles and libraries from crude membranes”. The patent covers the company’s method of direct extraction of membrane proteins from cells or crude membranes to enable drug development for challenging drug targets, as well as for the generation of libraries with Salipro particles representing the membrane proteome, the particles themselves and their uses.
The method is used in drug discovery where membrane proteins represent the targets of more than 60% of drugs in clinical use, Salipro says. However, progress in drug development is often hampered by the inherent instability of membrane proteins – a problem which the company says is addressed by its technology.
Jens Frauenfeld, CEO, said: “Ever since its inception, DirectMX has had a profound impact on how we accelerate drug discovery with our pharma partners. Our foundational IP covering the Salipro platform technology has already resulted in various patents being granted to Salipro Biotech in the US, EU, China and Japan, and this patent will provide additional broad protection for our proprietary platform technology for the stabilization of challenging drug targets.”
Maria Knudsen, Business Developer, said: “DirectMX is rapidly becoming established as a key drug discovery platform and we are already partnering with major pharma companies on a range of targets, including GPRCs, SLCs and Ion Channels. Further strengthening our patent portfolio will enable us to increase the value of such collaborations as well as moving towards building our own discovery pipeline.”
